Royals roar to National Championship title

The Douglas Royals won the 2018 CCAA/Canada Curling Championship 7-3 over the defending champion Fanshawe Falcons. 

The Royals entered the men's gold medal game undefeated while the Flacons had finished the preliminary rounds ranked second. Staying true to form throughout the championships, the Royals would make few mistakes and provide little to no window of opportunity for opponents to score and take control of a game. The Royals opened the scoring in the first end with two points, which the Falcons would answer with a scattering of singles in the 2^nd and 4^th end, heading into the break tied at 2-2. In the 6^th end, the Royals would settle for a single against a pesky Falcons team, before blowing the game wide open with a gut-wrenching steal of four in the 7^th after a Fanshawe miscue to take a 7-2 lead into the homestretch.

The Falcons would regain their composure but missed an opportunity for multiple points in the 9^th to complete the comeback and scoring only one point. After 9 ends the teams would shake hands as the Douglas College Royals won gold by a final score of 7-3. This was the second CCAA Men's Curling National Championship title for the Royals, with their last coming nearly 30 years ago in 1990. For the Falcons, this was a heartbreaking loss as they failed to defend their title from 2017, however did manage their 5^th CCAA medal since 2012. 

The men's bronze medal match featured two ACAC teams, the #3 seeded NAIT Ooks doing battle with #4 ranked University of Alberta-Augustana Vikings. The Ooks came out flying to start the game by taking an exclamation point score of 3 in the 1^st end and followed it up with a steal of one in the 2^nd. The Vikings would regroup to score one in the 3^rd end and steal a single in the 4^th to cut the deficit in half. Yet the Ooks were relentless in their offense as they added two more in the 5^th and another steal of one in the 6^th to take a commanding 7-2 lead. The teams would trade single scores over the next three ends before shaking hands after the 9^th, giving the Ooks the bronze medal with a final score of 8-4. This was the fourth CCAA medal for the Ooks since 2013.

Final Standings Douglas Royals  Fanshawe Falcons  NAIT Ooks	Men's Tournament All-Stars Skip - Daniel Wenzek, Douglas Royals Third - Logan James, Fanshawe Falcons Second - Brayden Carpenter, Douglas Royals Lead - Brady St. Louis, Fanshawe Falcons
CCAA Fair Play Award Jonah Tobinski, NAIT Ooks	Curling Canada Coaching Award Will Sutton, Douglas Royals