Team Winters rink wins James Kelly Memorial Award
2025 Team of the Year
Green and gold. It’s a special colour combination reserved only for athletes who earn the distinction of representing Team Northern Ontario at a national curling championship.
Team Winters from North Bay has certainly done that, and because of their recent accomplishments, they have been recognized by the North Bay Sports Hall of Fame as the recipients of the James Kelly Memorial Award for the 2025 Team of the Year.
Northern Ontario may be the only sub-provincial region in all of Canadian sport with a direct berth to national championships. It’s a tradition dating back to the first Canadian Men’s Curling Championship (The Brier) in 1927 and continuing today.
In 2024, the North Bay Granite Club team of Riley Winters (skip), Wesley Decary, Grayson Gribbon, Aidan Baxter, Steve Decary (coach), and former team member Josh Dumoulin received their threads for the first time as they represented Northern Ontario at the Canadian Under-18 Curling Championships in Ottawa, Ontario.
It’s a goal the team has been working towards for a quadrennial since forming in the 2019-2020 season, when the boys were only 13 years old.
In 2025, Team Winters represented North Bay and Northern Ontario again — this time as a foursome and an age category above at the Canadian Under-20 Curling Championships (Canadian Juniors) in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. In both national appearances, the Winters rink qualified as a second-place entry awarded to the Northern Ontario region for their prior strong performances at the national level.
The team’s most significant accomplishment came in the 2025-2026 season when they captured first place at the Northern Ontario Under-18 Provincial Championships. In curling, winning a provincial crown is an achievement coveted by every competitive curler — and it is marked by the awarding of a championship banner that hangs in one’s club for the test of time, as well as with the presentation of hearts.
A heart is a woven crest in the aforementioned shape that has long been the symbol of a provincial or territorial champion, awarded in all categories of competition leading to a national championship. Hearts come in different colours (purple for the Brier, red for the Tournament of Hearts, yellow for Under-18) and are nowadays presented in a glass frame.
As the first-place team representing Northern Ontario at their third and most recent national championship in Timmins, Ontario, the team qualified for play-offs and shy of the podium — a result that the team would repeat shortly thereafter at the 2026 Ontario Winter Games in Orillia, Ontario.
In the team’s final year of Under-18 eligibility, they challenged themselves in adult men’s play by entering their first playdown to represent Northern Ontario at the Brier. The team impressed opponents with their maturity and shot-making ability on route to a record of three wins and three losses at the provincial championship hosted on home ice in North Bay.
Curling clubs are inter-generational spaces and competing among elders is common, if not an endearing aspect of the sport. Members of Team Winters have been participating in adult leagues at the North Bay Granite Club for many years. Each of them independently are Club Champions and together they won the club’s long-time annual Coldwell Banker Bonspiel to close out the 2024-2025 season.
With adventures into post-secondary education impending, members of Team Winters are uncertain what the future holds for them as a unit, though it is safe to assume that there will be more rock-throwing, sliding, sweeping, and moments for celebration on the pebbled ice in a series of unfolding stories that started right here in the North Bay area.
Team Winters will receive their award at the 45th Annual Induction and Awards Dinner on Saturday, May 2, at the Davedi Club. Tickets can be purchased through Larry Tougas at 705-303-8104. Tickets are also available at the Davedi Club by calling 705-474-4190. Tickets are $65.
