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Local Myrden Rink wins the South Island Club Challenge

In a Cowichan Rocks Curling Club first, the local Myrden Rink has qualified for the Pacific International Cub Challenge, to be held in Richmond, April 20 to 24.
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From left is Skip Diane Myrden

The local Myrden Rink is hurrying hard, this season.

In a Cowichan Rocks Curling Club first, they’ve qualified for the Pacific International Cub Challenge, to be held in Richmond, April 20 to 24.

“We are so excited to be representing the Cowichan Rocks and the Cowichan Lake area,” skip Diane Myrden said, adding that they plan on handing out gift baskets of Cowichan Lake tourist materials and little prizes.

The rink’s first game has already been scheduled, with the foursome competing against an Oregon team on Wednesday, April 20. Competing teams are all from North America.

The Myrden rink, made up of  Skip Diane Myrden, Third Tricia Mayea, Second Kari McKinlay, and Lead Maria Elzinga, qualified for the Club Challenge after placing first in the South Island Challenge, held two weekends ago at the Kerry Park Curling Club.

“It’s a chance for league winners to get that venue to curl more competitively,” Myrden said, of the event.

“The ice was challenging, to say the least. We just happened to be lucky, and we made it.”

The local Dennis Sutton rink represented the Men’s League for Cowichan Rocks, but lost out in the quarter finals.

It took a while after winning for the Myrden Rink to fully grasp their accomplishment, Myrden said.

“We didn’t realize it. We were just standing there and thinking ‘Oh my God, we won!’” Myrden said.

In advance of the April 20 to 24 Pacific International Club Challenge, Myrden said it’s a sit-and-wait situation.

“All the ices are out; we can’t even practice,” she said, of local-area curling rinks.

There’s pressure for her rink to do well, Myrden said, as the winners go on to the Dominion Curling Club Challenge, to be held this November, and will also be held in Richmond.

“But on the national stage, against winners from all the provinces across Canada,” Myrden said.

The Myrden Rink has been together for about five years.

“We got together years ago to get into competitive curling,” Myrden said. “We get along so well. We just curl and we laugh.”