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Terrace B.C. men strike trifecta curling season

Two men struck a trifecta season this year, crowned with an exhilarating victory at the recent Men’s Loggers Bonspiel.
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It was a striking trifecta season for Chad Sallenback and Dave Reniero, crowned with an exhilarating victory at the recent Men’s Loggers Bonspiel here in Terrace.

The men play on the Copeland rink with Shane deJong and Warren Copeland, and together executed a dramatic comeback against the Dahms rink in an intense 7-6 quarter-final at the Logger’s bonspiel March 24-26.

Pumped with the momentum of that close victory, the Copelands breezed through their final two games to clinch the win.

But Sallenback says it took a lot to get to that quarter final match. “We were put in with what I consider the strongest teams,” said Sallenback of their draw in the early bracket. “Every single game we played was a super hard game.”

First up the Copelands faced last year’s champions, Greenslade from Kitimat, and  managed to beat them 8-6.

Second they played the experienced Bowles team, another good game where they secured a 8-5 victory.

Next was the quarter-final match, the highlight of the tournament, where Copelands went up against the Mike Dahms rink, which also includes Chris Calder, JT Blanchett and Matt Gyorfi. Sallenback says that if you would have picked two teams for the final game, you would have guessed these ones, and it was a close, back and forth match early on. The Dahms managed to take a 4-2 lead by the fifth end, and then set up the sixth to devastate the Copelands.

The Dahms had four rocks grouped together in the house, and Sallenback says friends told him afterward that they had written him off.

But Copeland, who throws third and can toss some big weight, managed to spread out the rocks and open things up. With strong sweeping from Reniero and deJong, and two ice hits thrown by Sallenback at the end, they managed to clear out most of the Dahms’ rocks so they only stole one point in the end.

That put the score 5-3, with the Copelands needing a come back in the last two ends. In the seventh they managed to get three rocks in the house, and an attempted double knockout only knocked out one. But a Dahms rock sat closest to the button, with two Copeland rocks elsewhere in house.

With his final rock, Sallenback executed a beautiful delicate-weight shot to tap the Dahms out and keep his rock in house, scoring three points to tie it up 6-6.

For the final end, the Dahms had the last stone, but the Copelands managed to get set up well: They placed a rock on the 4-foot (inner ring) with a guard above it, forcing the Dahms to attempt a knockout though the opposite side of the ice which was cluttered with rocks. That final shot from the Dahms nicked a guard and was thrown off track, securing a 7-6 victory for the Copelands.

“From that point on… we just rolled through the rest of the bonspiel,” said Sallenback. “It was a big win and there were a lot of people watching.”

They defeated John Evans 5-1 in the semi-final, and Travis Bernhardt 6-1 in the A-final to win the bonspiel.

The bonspiel rang up double-gold for the team, since they’d already claimed first in the Thursday men’s league, with an undefeated record since January.

As for Chad Sallenback and Dave Reniero, it marked a striking trifecta season, since they’d also won the playoffs in the Tuesday open league this year. They play in that Tuesday league with Cam Metzger and Allan Bowles.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody else do that,” said Sallenback.

“It’s pretty awesome… certainly something I will cherish with my friends for years to come.”