Team Vivier defeats Thunder Bay's Dubinsky rink for Ontario Winter Games girls curling gold

Thunder Bay curler Claire Dubinsky and her team put on quite the show at the 2024 Ontario Winter Games, recording only one loss over the weekend.

The timing of that loss, however, was unfortunate, as it came in Monday's girls gold medal game; Dubinsky's team lost 5-4 to Ottawa's Team Vivier at the Fort William Curling Club.

"Going 6-0 and then losing the final, it does sting," Dubinsky said after the game. "We played hard. It was a tight game, tied in the last [end], that final draw just unfortunately ... a foot too heavy. And that's what did it for us."

But Dubinsky says they're focusing on the positives from the whole weekend instead. 

"They're a great team," she said. "They came a higher place than us in nationals."

"Losing by one, we will take it. And knowing all the accomplishments that we've had so far this year, we're feeling confident," she said. 

Opposing skip, and gold medal winner, Dominique Vivier said her team was "pretty nervous" heading into the gold medal match, especially given the fact that they lost to Team Dubinsky during round-robin play this weekend.

"We knew we could put up a better performance," she said. "We put the pressure on ourselves to to play better, as we should, and and I think we're really happy with our last performance of the season."

The bronze medal in girls curling went to Team Stoddart, which defeated Team Chilton 7-4 in extra ends.

Down the hall at the hockey rink at Fort William Gardens, the Northwest Explorers bounced back from two straight losses to win a bronze medal on Monday morning.

The Explorers team — which is made up of players from across northwestern Ontario — had begun the Ontario Winter Games tournament with back-to-back wins.

However, they dropped their third and final round-robin game, and then lost Sunday night in a playoff, which kept them out of gold medal contention.

Still, the team put on a strong performance in Monday's bronze medal game, defeating Ottawa Myers Automotive by a score of 6-2.

"After the disappointing loss yesterday with a one goal lead with about six minutes left, I thought the kids come out and played a really solid game today," coach Ed Atwill said. "I think it was one of our better games of the tournament, so I'm very happy for them."

The medal was even more special given the Explorers had just three practices to get ready for the games.

"It's tough when you only have three practices and you demand certain things out of them, or you want to see certain things and you don't always see it," Atwill said. "It can get a bit frustrating, but they just stick with it. And today they did a lot of things that we wanted them to do."

"I'm proud of the way they hung in there."

Forward Mason Glousher said he felt great after winning the bronze medal.

"All our teammates were working hard and we couldn't do it without them," he said. "Everyone was just doing the right thing, and we came out with a win."

The gold medal hockey game, played later Monday, saw the Credit River Capitals defeat the Northern Ontario Hockey Association team by a score of 3-2.

Monday's competition brought the 2024 Ontario Winter Games to an end. All-told, the event was a big success, chair Barry Streib said.

"There was a lot of work by the entire team, months and months of that," Streib said. "These games have went incredibly, incredibly well."

"We're so happy that our athletes, coaches, officials and all our guests have made made comments to us to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us. So that makes us feel good, because I guess we did the right thing."

A full list of results from the 2024 games is available on the event's website.