William Lyburn loves curling - everything about curling.

Lyburn, Richard Daneault, Jared Kolomaya and Braden Zawada of the Granite Curling Club in Winnipeg are seeded fourth for the 2017 Viterra Championship in Portage and are one win away from qualifying for the Playoff Round which begins Friday night.

“We just got to play our way into it and keep getting better,” said Lyburn who beat Jim Renwick of Brandon 8-2 on day one and Hayden Forrester of Fort Rouge 7-1 on day two.

“We've got lots of room for improvement. Just got to keep playing better and well come I'm sure when some of the shots are tougher.”

The former Scottish junior champion played in his first Manitoba Men's Curling Championship in 1998.

Lyburn's best finish was in Dauphin in 2012.He lost to Mike McEwen in the 1-2 page playoff game and then lost in the semifinals to the eventual champions which included his brother Allan who played third for his former junior skip Rob Fowler.

Lyburn said being asked to be Fowler's fifth at the Brier rejuvenated him.“I went there and had a great time with those guys. Rich was part of that team, my brother and Robbie – just a great group of guys. Brian Fowler being the coach. Brian and me are pretty close. It just said to me, 'I want to do this.' From that moment on I probably looked at the game as being a little bit more serious with regards to getting the proper sleep and not over doing certain things. We enjoy the game still but lets work a little harder at it.”

The Lyburn family moved to Brandon shortly after William and Allan placed sixth place at the World Junior Championship.

William played third for Rob Fowler and the two came so close to capturing a Manitoba junior crown.

“Me and Robbie had kind of had a tough time three years in a row. Basically we lost a provincial junior final, the last year being the A-B final but we lost either an A or the B final the previous two years . We felt we were one of the best junior teams out there that never won the province. For me the curling got me quicker to be a Canadian because I wanted to go over to Scotland and say I've got a Maple Leaf on my back.”

 

2017 Viterra Provincial Men's Curling Championship
@ Portage la Prairie
Friday, February 10th
Draw #9  8:30 a.m.
"A" Side Qualfiers
Mike McEwen, Fort Rouge 6 Trevor Loreth, Granite 2
Matt Dunstone, Deer Lodge 7 Taylor McIntyre, Pembina 5
William Lyburn, Granite 11 Sean Grassie, Fort Rouge 7
Reid Carruthers, West St. Paul 9 David Bohn, Assiniboine Memorial 6

Draw#10  12:15 p.m.
"B" Side
Steve Irwin, Brandon 6 Kelly Marnoch, Carberry 5
Dennis Bohn, Assiniboine Memorial 8 Travis Bale, East St. Paul 7
Jason Gunnlaugson, Granite 8 Kyle Foster, Arborg 4
Derek Oryniak, Granite 7 Ray Baker, Dauphin 1

Draw #11  4 p.m.
"B" Side Qualifiers
Loreth 7 Irwin 2
Dennis Bohn 7 McIntyre 5
Gunnlaugson 5 Grassie 3
David Bohn 7 Oryniak 4

Draw #12  7:45 p.m.
Playoff Round
"A" Side
McEwen vs Dennis Bohn
Dunstone vs Loreth
Lyburn vs David Bohn
Carruthers vs Gunnlaugson