The last time we checked in on the Yukon mixed curling team of Bob Smallwood, Jody Smallwood, Alexx Peech and Jenna Duncan they had made it to the Championship Pool at the 2019 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship in Winnipeg, Man.

The team, representing the Whitehorse Curling Club, finished with a 5-5 record, coming in seventh overall, out of 14 teams. The team played Alberta in their third game of the Championship Pool, a game Peech says did not go their way.

“We didn’t show up against Alberta,” said Peech. “We gave up three in the first end, and giving up that much early is tough to come back from. When you are down that much early you need the other team to make mistakes, but they are all good hitters, all the teams are really good, so you can’t make mistakes.

“After the first we didn’t play bad the rest of the way, but we couldn’t overcome that early deficit. When you go behind you have to take more risks and we just couldn’t catch up. We lost 7-5.”

The team’s last game of the tournament saw them playing British Columbia led by skip Cody Tanaka. Yukon finished the tournament off with a 9-7 win after scoring two in the eighth and final end.

“It was nice to go out on top, with a win,” said Peech. “We did pretty good, it was one of our better games of the week. In the sixth Bob was able to score four, but B.C. got three back on us in the seventh, to tie it at seven.”

Overall the team is pleased with how the week went, and is looking forward to playing again in other competitive tournaments.

“It was a really acceptable finish,” said Peech. “It was the best finish for Bob and Jody in this event. It builds confidence for the future events and we leave knowing we can play better, but in the end we are all really happy. We also got a lot of support from back home, especially when our games were on live stream.”

This was the sixth consecutive year that skipper Smallwood has represented the Yukon at the Canada Mixed Curling Championships. Smallwood last made the Championship Pool in 2016, he missed out in 2017 and 18. It was Peech’s second Canadian Mixed Curling Championship curling with Smallwood.

In last year’s tournament the Yukon team only managed to win one game in the round robin, failing to advance.

In front of the home crowd, 21 year-old skip Colin Kurz led the Manitoban team past Nova Scotia’s skip Kendal Thompson 7-4 to take home the gold medal. It is the ninth Canadian Mixed gold medal won by a Manitoban team; the last time was in 2009.

The bronze medal game saw Quebec’s Felix Asselin and his team defeat Ontario’s Wayne Tuck 7-6. The game needed an extra end to decide a winner.