After getting shut down in four World Curling Tour finals the last few years, Thomas Scoffin has finally broken through.
The Whitehorse skip and his Edmonton rink captured the men’s title at the Dawson Creek Cash Spiel, a World Curling Tour (WCT) event, in B.C. on Nov. 27.
“It feels great. It was a bit of a slow start to the season for us this year,” said Scoffin. “The last month we’ve really been turning it on, flipping the season around here. So it’s been a bit of a grind, but we feel really good after getting that win.”
Scoffin made two WCT finals last season, including the Dawson Creek event a year ago.
This year the 22-year-old and his team of third Tristan Steinke, second Jason Ginter and lead Brett Winfield, took the title with a 6-4 win over Edmonton’s Warren Cross in the final, pocketing a cheque for $2,500.
Team Scoffin went 3-1 in the round robin with a loss to Team Cross.
“This team we play quite a bit — they’re another local Edmonton team,” said Scoffin. “We weren’t at our best the first time that we played them. We struggled a little bit with the ice conditions and all that. In the final we just turned it around, I guess, and figured it out a little bit better and used the conditions to our advantage.”
Following the round robin the Scoffin rink beat Grande Prairie’s Team Powell, led by Graham Powell, 5-1 in the quarterfinal
They then topped Dawson Creek’s Team Ginter 5-4 in the semifinal. The Ginter team includes skip Jeff Ginter and Tracy Steinke, the fathers of Scoffin’s second and third players.
“That was a fun game, actually,” said Scoffin. “We hadn’t played them before, so it was interesting to play their dads. Honestly, they had the upper hand the whole game and we got lucky with two breaks in the eighth end to crack the three to win.”
Team Scoffin’s previous best finish this season was a quarterfinal showing at the Medicine Hat Charity Classic in October.
Scoffin, who led Canada to a bronze medal in curling at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games, curls out of Edmonton where he is in his fifth year of study at the University of Alberta.
Last season Scoffin and Jason Ginter won silver with the University of Alberta Golden Bears senior curling team at the 2016 CIS/Curling Canada University Championships in March. The previous year they won eight straight to claim the national CIS title.
Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com