CHAMPION: Hirata Wins 2023 Hokkaido Bank Curling Classic

SKIP
Kohsuke
Hirata

Third
Shingo
Usui

Second
Ryota
Meguro

Lead
Yoshiya
Miura

Kohsuke Hirata (Kitami, JPN) won 8-2 over Jongduk Park (Gangwon, KOR) in the Final of the Hokkaido Bank Curling Classic, held August 3 - 6, 2023 at the Hokkaido Bank Curling Stadium in Sapporo, Japan. To advance to the championship game, Hirata won 6-3 over Hayato Sato (Sapporo, JPN) in the semifinals

Hirata finished 3-1 in the 10-team qualifying round. . In their opening game, Hirata defeated JaeBeom Lee (Uiseong, KOR) 8-2, then went on to lose 5-2 against Shinya Abe (Sapporo, JPN). Hirata responded with a 12-1 win over Yusuke Morozumi (Karuizawa, JPN). Hirata won 4-2 against Park in their final qualifying round match.

For winning the Hokkaido Bank Curling Classic Championship title, Hirata earned 22.500 world rankings points along with the $9,292CDN first prize cheque, moving up 23 spots the World Ranking Standings into 47th place overall with 77.625 total points. Hirata ranks 2nd overall on the Year-to-Date rankings with 22.500 points earned so far this season.

RECORD	W	L	T	PCT	HMR	STL	1PT	EEH	EES
2024	36	22	0	0.621	9-5	0-3	1-3	1-1	0-0

SCORING	ENDs	PF	PA	PF/G	PA/G	+/-	EF/G	EA/G	PF/E	PA/E	BE/G
2024	374	313	232	8.37	6.20	2.17	4.71	3.96	1.78	1.57	1.34

WITH HAMMER	ENDs	PF	PA	BE	4s	3s	2s	PF/E	PA/E	HE	SD
2024	177	226	46	23	9-0	19-2	40-8	1.28	0.26	0.44	0.19

WITHOUT HAMMER	ENDs	PF	PA	BE	4s	3s	2s	PF/E	PA/E	FE	SE
2024	197	87	186	27	2-3	6-13	12-36	0.44	0.94	0.54	0.28

2023: Kohsuke Hirata
Kohsuke Hirata, Shingo Usui, Ryota Meguro, Yoshiya Miura
Kitami, JPN
2022: ByeongJin Jeong
ByeongJin Jeong, JeongJae Lee, MinWoo Kim, Taehwan Kim
Seoul, KOR
2019: Yuta Matsumura
Yuta Matsumura, Tetsuro Shimizu, Yasumasa Tanida, Shinya Abe, Kosuke Aita
Kitami, JPN
2018: Masaki Iwai
Go Aoki, Masaki Iwai, Ryotaro Shukuya, Koki Ogiwara, Kei Kamada
Sapporo, JPN
2017: Soo-Hyuk Kim
Soo-Hyuk Kim, Taehwan Kim, Jongduk Park, Yoonho Nam
Gangwon, KOR
2016: Karsten Sturmay
Karsten Sturmay, Tristan Steinke, Chris Kennedy, Caleb Boorse
Edmonton, AB

Brendan Bottcher (photo: Stan Fong) is moving on from now former teammates Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert, announced Tuesday.

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