Scoffin doesn't get entry to his favourite bonspiel

Thomas Scoffin won't be playing in his favourite bonspiel this year, the one he hasn't missed for the past seven years.

That "bonspiel" happens to be the Canadian Junior where the 19-year-old curler has been a fixture. But as Norm Cowley reports in the Edmonton Journal, the kid was bounced from the Alberta Junior, losing to Calgary’s Carter Lautner in the Alberta junior men’s final at the Leduc Curling Club on Monday.

“I’m pretty devastated, to be honest,” Scoffin said afterwards. “I love being there, I love competing, I love the atmosphere.“We had a great team lined up to go all the way this year, so it’s pretty disappointing to not win the final,” he said about his Saville Centre crew of Dylan Gousseau, Jaques Bellamy and Andrew O’Dell.

I remember interviewing Scoffin as a 12-year-old in St. Catharines when he played his first Junior representing the Yukon. He was, obviously, a shy boy who looked as if he was barely big enough to push the rock down the ice. That made him the youngest skip in the history of the Junior, by the way.

Now the kid is all grown up and a fabulous curler, by all reports. Oh and he still has another year of junior eligibility remaining so he can go for an eighth Junior.