Fleury and Dunstone capture curling titles in North Bay

Tracy Fleury and Matt Dunstone are this year’s Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling Masters champions.

The event at Memorial Gardens wrapped up Sunday with two hard fought games and both champions won a grand slam event for the first time.

Fleury was asked about the key in her 7-5 win over Sayaka Yoshimura.

“The turning point was the 4th. We put some pressure on them and got a steal to go up 5-2. That was a critical moment for us,” she says.

Yoshimura battled back to make the score 6-5 after 7 ends and with last rock Fleury got one in the 8th to clinch the win.

Fleury, a Sudbury area born curler gave plenty of credit to her team. She says they set the ends up really well and made her job easy.

Dunstone was facing 11 time Grand Slam champion Brad Gushue and was down 2-1 in the 3rd when he counted three to go up 4-2 and never trailed in the 8-5 win.

Gushue didn’t make it easy as he narrowed a 6-3 lead to 6-5 with two in the 6th but Dunstone put the game on ice with singles in the 7th and 8th.

Dunstone says it was a fun week for his team.

“We were lucky enough to play in a slam that has this sort of fan support and knowledgeable fans too. It went back to enjoy the process. There are hundreds of teams that would do anything to be in our position. So we wanted to enjoy it because you never know if you’ll get it again,” he says.

(photos by station staff)