by Rick Kupchuk
Black Press
Team Tardi (Fraser Valley, Zone 3) lost just once at the BC Winter Games, but it was enough to drop the Langley Curling Club quartet to the bronze medal in the male curling event.
Tyler Tardi skipped his team to a win all three round robin games, but the group couldn’t hang on to a 3-1 lead after five ends in Saturday’s semifinal and fell 6-3 to Brayden Carpenter of Zone 4 (Fraser River Delta).
In Sunday’s bronze medal match, Team Tardi made short work of the Thompson-Okanagan (Zone 2) team with a 9-3 victory in just six ends. Tardi had a strong start, scoring two in the first end. Then after holding the Zone 2 team to one in the second end, the Cloverdale resident tacked on four points in the third medal for a 6-1 lead after just three ends of play.
“There’s less pressure when you’re not playing for the gold medal,” said Tardi. “The two teams in the final deserve to be there, they were playing very well. Bronze is what we deserved.”
Other members of the bronze medal team include Nicholas Umbach of Coquitlam, Scottie Kryski of Langley and Joshua Desrosiers of Aldergrove.