Team B.C. Men, based out of the Kimberley Curling Club, have won the 2025 Canadian Curling Club Championships, held in Winnipeg from Nov. 17-23, battling through a week of tight competition and camaraderie.
The team consists of Skip Mitch Young, Third Steve Tersmette, Second Blair Jarvis, Lead Kevin Hoglund, Alternate Matthew Reynolds and Coach Chris Summers.
They punched their ticket to the championship by winning the 2025 BC Men’s Club Championship in March at the Cranbrook Curling Centre.
The tournament was hosted at the Granite Curling Club in Winnipeg, Man., a 113-year-old establishment with a tremendous amount of history.
“It’s such a neat building, it’s got a ton of charm and walking in there the day before the event started was a really cool experience,” Jarvis said. “Just to see architecture that old and to see somewhere that’s really the home of curling in Winnipeg.
He added that the event was different than some of the other competitive events the team’s played in, in that while all the teams are there to win, everyone is also there for a good time and a memorable experience.
“It was the most camaraderie I’ve ever experienced on the ice and off the ice at a competitive event,” Jarvis said.
“We socialized afterwards with every team that we played against. We swapped shirts with a few different people and I think our team actually needs to order a few more, because we over-committed what we were trading. We became really good friends with the teams from P.E.I., Quebec and Nova Scotia and it was so much fun off the ice. Even if we hadn’t won a game it was an incredible week and an experience we’ll never forget.”
Jarvis said before the event, the team wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but had hopes of making the playoff round, which was made up of the top four teams from each pool.
Team B.C. would wind up finishing 5-1 in their pool, earning the top spot. This, Jarvis added, was far from an easy feat.
“We easily could have been 2-4,” he explained. “We had a lot of close games that we were on the fortunate side of either making a key shot, or the other team had an inopportune miss that allowed us to come out on top.”
In the playoff round on Saturday they faced Team Yukon. Jarvis said they were a good team, but they played on a very tricky ice sheet. It was the first time playing on it for Yukon and B.C. was able to jump on them early and prevent their opponents from getting anything going.
They played Team P.E.I. in the second game, which was a strong back and forth throughout and then faced Nova Scotia in the last game, which Jarvis called “a dog fight.”
Both teams were making big shots and then in the last end Team B.C. was in trouble, forcing Third Steve Tersmette to make an incredible draw to the button around guards to freeze to a rock. After executing that clutch shot, there was nothing more for Nova Scotia to do and B.C. held on for the win.
“We just kept finding ways to win and we had some really gutsy games and performances with our backs against the wall and for us that was just the story of the week — how many times we found ourselves behind in games and managed to scrap out wins,” Tersmette said.
“In nine of the 11 games we that we played the game came down to the last rock of the last end, one way or the other and I think that just goes to show how tight that field was at that event.”
Their win over Nova Scotia took them to the semi-finals on Sunday morning, where they took on Team Ontario. B.C. made a big score early in the game and Ontario fired right back with one of their own.
Once again B.C. looked like they were in some trouble in the eighth end. Skip Mitch Young had to draw the pin on the button to advance and he executed, advancing them to the finals, where they took on Team Newfoundland.
“They came back and had us on the ropes, they probably had a shot to win it in the sixth end,” Jarvis said. “It would have been for four points and they just missed their double takeout by an inch. That allowed us to steal one in the sixth end and we were able to steal again in seven and left them a pretty much impossible shot in eight, so we were able to hang on for the win there.
“Just really close, intense games, but so much fun.”
The evening following the championship win was a “whirlwind,” according to Jarvis, with the medals ceremony immediately after and a wind-up banquet to follow. This gave them the chance to interact with all the teams, including those they hadn’t been in draws with throughout the tournament.
Both Jarvis and Tersmette said the win has yet to sink in fully.
“We really tried to focus on one game at a time, one shot at a time and not get ahead of ourselves, but seeing a banner go up on the wall will be something that we cherish for a long time,” Jarvis said.
“Mitch, Steve, Kevin and I are really good friends off the ice as well and so it’s so great to experience that with such great guys and then we were all fortunate to have family there as well, so to experience it with a larger group of people was something that I’ll never forget and whether we won or lost that week, it was an incredible experience.”
Matthew Reynolds, 18, said that as the team’s alternate, he feels his view of the experience may differ slightly to his teammates’, but described the experience as “incredible.”
The youngest on the team, he said his role was to be behind the glass, running statistics and scouting all the other sheets — all the work behind the scenes, not seen when watching a live stream.
“Just to be able to compete with such a high level of competition, that means everything and it’s very inspiring for me to push on and go further in my life and curling career,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds is now gearing up for the U18 Provincial Championships in Richmond and the U20 Provincials in Victoria this December, plus the mixed championships here in Kimberley in March.
Tersmette and Jarvis both coach Reynolds’ team and said they will be doing everything they can to ensure the team has the best possible experience competing.
After the championships the team arrived back home in the Kootenays, where a group of a couple dozen supporters met them at the airport.
The team said they felt a ton of support from friends, family and the greater curling community throughout the championship. Some organized a watch party at the Kimberley Curling Club to watch their victory on Sunday.
“Just to see all of the people that rallied behind us, I’m tearing up just talking about it,” Tersmette said. “The support locally from our friends and family and the curling community and even people we’ve never met were sending us messages, cheering us on and well wishes and congrats.
“It’s really tough to describe what that feels like, but seeing everyone rally around that whole thing, to me, that almost feels more significant is how other people viewed that experience, because I think ours is fairly focused and we haven’t really had a chance to step back from the whole thing yet.”