Later this month, a man who calls Brandon his home will head to Russia. Brayden Payette will play on Team Jacques Gauthier for the 2020 World Junior Curling Championships which take place from February 15-22, in Krasnoyarsk, Russia.
At the nationals earlier this month in Langley, Payette and the rest of the foursome had a near-perfect week to earn their spot. Playing as Manitoba #2, they won 10 games and they capped things off by beating Newfoundland and Labrador in the final, 8-6.
Their only loss of the entire tournament was against Nova Scotia in their third game.
"It honestly still hasn't sunk in. We all feel when we get closer to Russia, we'll realize that it's actually real," said Payette. "It's still hard to believe that we won nationals."
The team was Manitoba #2 because of what happened on the provincial stage. They dropped the provincial final against Lawson Yates and the rest of Team Brett Walter. However, Manitoba had two spots at the nationals this year which meant they would still get the opportunity to play. In the provincial final, they still played quite well, but they really did ramp it up on the national stage.
"We were lucky that we had that chance this year," said Payette. "We were joking all week, who needs a provincial title if you can still win the national title. It's still our joke to this day."
Of their 11 games at the nationals, Payette and the rest of the foursome scored at least six points in eight of them. They also got a sense of revenge against Yates and his team as they beat them, 9-4 in the round-robin.
The team from the Assiniboine Memorial Curling Club in Winnipeg also features Zack Bilawka and Jordan Peters.
"We stayed really focused all week and we learned a lot from our provincial final loss," continued Payette. "We just played really solid curling all week; it's actually kind of unreal how well we played."
In perhaps the comeback of the entire tournament, the team trailed Quebec 6-0 after three ends in their first game. Manitoba #2 ended up scoring 10 points the rest of the way to eliminate that deficit and win 10-9.
They followed that up with a win against New Brunswick before they dropped their one and only game against Nova Scotia. The rest of the way, they won eight straight games.
The team will now get all fitted in their new Canadian apparel before they board a plane with Krasnoyarsk being their destination. The team's first game is on February 15 against the United States.
In all, they'll play nine round-robin games through February 20.
"This has been a dream of mine since I was a little kid," said Payette. "I've watched this event so much and it's always been a goal of mine to take part in it. It's a dream come true and I can't believe it."
Standing in Canada's way of becoming a World Champion is the U.S., Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Norway, New Zealand, Germany, Russia, and Scotland.
Payette and the rest of this year's team will certainly have some big shoes to fill when the event begins. Tyler Tardi and his Canadian team won the past two world championships.
Carberry's Braden Calvert also won the event back in 2015.
On February 19, you can watch the team take on Russia when they battle them at 6:00 a.m. local time.
