Full steam ahead for Robertson and his curling team this season

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Published on Friday, October 4, 2013

By: Lanny Stewart

myWestman.ca

Neepawa's Kelly Robertson and his senior curling team have no plans of slowing down this season.

The senior foursome, which includes third Doug Armour of Souris, second Peter Prokopowich of Sifton and lead Bob Scales of Winnipeg, are in the midst of preparing for another string of bonspiels that they plan on attending in the coming weeks and months ahead.

"If there comes a time when somebody on our team can't make it, that might be the end of what we're doing," said Robertson. "Our team is such a great bunch of guys, I wouldn't even consider curling with anyone else and I think the other three guys feel the same way about everybody on the team."

The cohesiveness is apparent on the curling ice when it comes to Robertson and his crew over the past few years. The team has had a lot of success; this includes a world senior curling championship final appearance in 2012, which saw Robertson and his team lose to Ireland in the final. This past season, Robertson's team found themselves in the provincial senior championship game, but wound up losing a heartbreaker to Bob Sigurdson's West Kildonan team by a single point. 

Robertson says the team's goal remains the same: hopefully win a provincial title -- a feat that was accomplished two seasons ago -- and maybe, just maybe, advance to a world senior championship once again where the team can get another shot at winning gold. 

"I always look back at that [world championship] and wish that we could've won that," he said. "It would've been so special. We're always thinking that we'd like to get back there.

"That's definitely what we're shooting for," he continued, "but there's a lot of games from now until then. You've gotta get on a roll. We're another year older too and there's always more 50-year-olds coming along. There's gonna be some new teams battling with us too."

This will be the second year in a row that Robertson's team has opted to not take part in the Brandon-based Westman Super League, considered to be western Manitoba's premier curling league, but rather focus on more bonspiels during the season. The team's first bonspiel will be the Neil Andrews Legends Classic at the Brandon Curling Club later this month.

If all goes well for Robertson and his team, then they could be once again heading to the provincial senior curling championship, which will take place Feb. 20-24 in Brandon. Robertson's team also plans on attempting to earn a berth into the Safeway men's provincial championship, which takes place Jan. 29-Feb. 2 in Winnipeg. 

In photo: Kelly Robertson

Photo courtesy of teamrobertsoncurling.com