CHAMPION: Retornaz Wins 2023 HearingLife Tour Challenge Tier 1

SKIP
Joel
Retornaz

Third
Amos
Mosaner

Second
Sebastiano
Arman

Lead
Mattia
Giovanella

Joel Retornaz (Trentino, ITA) won 4-3 over Brendan Bottcher (Calgary, AB) in the Final of the HearingLife Tour Challenge Tier 1, held October 17 - 22, 2023 in Niagara Falls, Ontario. To advance to the championship game, Retornaz won 6-3 over Ross Whyte (Stirling, SCO) in the semifinals of the 2023 HearingLife Tour Challenge Tier 1 in Niagara Falls, Ontario; and won 6-2 over Niklas Edin (Karlstad, SWE) in the quarterfinals.

Retornaz finished 3-1 in the 16-team qualifying round. . In their opening game, Retornaz defeated Riku Yanagisawa (Karuizawa, JPN) 5-4, then won 4-2 against Reid Carruthers (Winnipeg, MB) and 8-2 against Edin. Retornaz went on to lose 6-4 against Bruce Mouat (STIRLING, SCO) in their final qualifying round match.

For winning the HearingLife Tour Challenge Tier 1 Championship title, Retornaz earned 75.000 world rankings points along with the $32,000CDN first prize cheque. Retornaz move up 1 spots after posting a net gain of 31.032 points improving upon their best 4 results so far this season, ranking 2nd overall with 388.469 total points on the World Ranking Standings. Retornaz ranks 2nd overall on the Year-to-Date rankings with 168.625 points earned so far this season.

RECORD	W	L	T	PCT	HMR	STL	1PT	EEH	EES
2024	63	13	0	0.829	20-0	10-1	6-0	0-0	1-0

SCORING	ENDs	PF	PA	PF/G	PA/G	+/-	EF/G	EA/G	PF/E	PA/E	BE/G
2024	551	487	281	8.84	5.10	3.74	4.81	3.50	1.84	1.46	1.69

WITH HAMMER	ENDs	PF	PA	BE	4s	3s	2s	PF/E	PA/E	HE	SD
2024	274	377	32	51	12-0	30-2	82-3	1.38	0.12	0.56	0.09

WITHOUT HAMMER	ENDs	PF	PA	BE	4s	3s	2s	PF/E	PA/E	FE	SE
2024	277	110	249	42	4-1	7-10	17-58	0.40	0.90	0.59	0.24

2023: Joel Retornaz
Joel Retornaz, Amos Mosaner, Sebastiano Arman, Mattia Giovanella
Trentino, ITA
2022: Niklas Edin
Niklas Edin, Oskar Eriksson, Rasmus Wrana, Christoffer Sundgren
Karlstad, SWE
2019: Brad Jacobs
Brad Jacobs, Marc Kennedy, E.J. Harnden, Ryan Harnden
Sault Ste Marie, NONT
2018: Brad Jacobs
Brad Jacobs, Ryan Fry, E.J. Harnden, Ryan Harnden
Sault Ste Marie, NONT
2017: Brad Gushue
Brad Gushue, Mark Nichols, Brett Gallant, Geoff Walker , Jules Owchar
St. John's, NL
2016: Niklas Edin
Niklas Edin, Oskar Eriksson, Rasmus Wrana, Christoffer Sundgren
Karlstad, SWE
2015: Kevin Koe
Kevin Koe, Marc Kennedy, Brent Laing, Ben Hebert
Calgary, AB

Gangwon Province's Park Jong-duk (Photo: Steve Seixeiro/WCF) will try to make it a second straight national title this week in Uijeongbu.

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