MANITOULIN—Manitoulin Island will be well represented at the Ontario Curling Association senior men’s provincial championships being held in the next few weeks.
At the senior men’s east qualifier held in Espanola this past weekend, the Robbie Gordon rink qualified for the 2020 senior men’s provincial curling championships, as did the rink that Chris Gordon curls with.
Chris Gordon is a Haweater, who now lives in Sudbury and curls out of the Copper Cliff Curling Club. He is the vice on the team skipped by Jason Strelezki. His rink was among 12 teams at the east qualifier, which had a triple-knockout format, with a total of five rinks qualifying for the provincials. They posted a four win, one loss record to advance. After winning their first two games his rink lost to the Robbie Gordon rink. This put the team into the B division qualifier, where they lost their only game.
Then in the C division, Chris Gordon’s rink won both their games to be among the five rinks to advance to the provincials.
Although the Recorder could not reach Chris Gordon for comment before this week’s press deadline, he had been quoted in the Recorder previously explaining he is originally from the Island, having been born in Mindemoya and growing up in Little Current. He is the son of Bruce and Helen Gordon of Little Current. He had worked for INCO (now Vale), until retiring. He was part of the Jason Strelezki-skipped team that captured the Northern Ontario banner in the 2013 Dominion Club championships, earning a trip to nationals in Thunder Bay.
The Robbie Gordon team won all three of its games in Espanola to qualify for the provincials, to take place in Sturgeon Falls. They defeated the Furevick team 7-3, the Strelezki rink 6-5, and the Pallot rink 5-3.
Robbie Gordon has many relatives on the Island, and he spent years of his youth living in Gore Bay as his grandparents once owned the former Gordon’s Lodge. His rink, based out of Sudbury includes vice Ron Henderson, second Dion Dumontelle and lead Doug Hong.
Chris Gordon and Robbie Gordon are related, being second cousins.
