By Darren Lum

The Red Hawks boys’ curling team’s skip Chris Draper is appreciating his newly formed team after taking the B final in the zone 5 GORE Curling Provincial Championships in the schoolboy category on Jan. 3 at the Peterborough Curling Club.
The win advanced the Hawks to the regions as the second seed for region 2 zone 5 in the championships. It will play on Feb. 12 at Leaside Curling Club for a chance to make the provincial finals.
Draper said the team defeated Fenelon Falls 10-4 in the bonspiel’s B final after losing the A final to the St. Peter’s Catholic Secondary School Saints.
The Grade 10 student adds the Saints were a formidable opponent that has been together the past few years and said the 8-3 loss was “pretty rough.” The Hawks called the game in the fifth end.
Conversely his team was only formed just before the competition. It was looking for a fourth player until Grade 11 Logan DeBruin McCready agreed to join the team as the lead.
Besides Draper and DeBruin McCready the team includes Grade 10 student Brian Wheeler and Grade 9 Dustyn DeBruin McCready younger brother to Logan.
The four are part of the Haliburton Youth Curling Club and practice every Thursday. They have known each other because of the club since Grade 4 but only came together for the first time this year.
This familiarity has fostered strong communication among each other which is an asset Draper said.
In their first game of the bonspiel the Hawks had beaten the Falcons to get to the A final to play the Peterborough rink. Draper said the calibre of the teams was very competitive at the bonspiel particular the Saints.
“We performed pretty good. We tried our best” he said.
After the bonspiel he learned they’ll need to work on their take outs and their strength is in their ability draw.
“If we work on those things we can probably get through” he said referring to the next round.