Epping Joins Forces With Horgan in the North

Toronto's John Epping won their opener at the AMJ Campbell Shorty Jenkins Classic, now competing with a Sudbury-based team. Tanner Horgan, with his brother Jacob and Ian MacMillan, reached the final of the Northern Ontario Tankard with Scott Chadwick as part of the lineup. Chadwick replaced Darren Moulding after Moulding retired late in the summer ahead of the 2023/24 season. With the departure of Chadwick and Epping's team disbanding after the 2023/24 season, the move seemed like a natural fit. Epping leads the team as a natural skip, long one of the top shooters in the game when he's on. Jacob remains at third, while older brother Tanner takes his backend skillset into his role at second. Ian McMillan takes over the lead position, a native of Winnipeg and able to play out of Northern Ontario due to birthright, being born in Dryden. Epping went 3-3 at the Stu Sells Oakville Tankard last weekend in Oakville, losing out in the C-Event semifinals to Korey Dropkin of Duluth, Minnesota. Epping won Thursday's opening game against China's Xiao-ming Xu, stealing a point in the first end, then scoring five in the second end to jump ahead 6-1. Epping added two more points in the sixth end for the 8-2 final decision. Epping meets James Craik of Scotland at 8 pm Eastern Time (ET) in their second game of the day. Craik is playing short-handed after skip James was injured in a fall in Oakville. Epping gets another Scottish foe in Bruce Mouat on Friday at 8 pm, available on COGECO's YourTV network across Ontario. Epping finishes the round-robin playing twice on Saturday with games at 2 pm against Scott Howard of Navan and 8 pm against Daniel Casper of Chaska, Minnesota. Men's quarterfinals go at 8:30 am on Sunday, with the championship final at 3:30 pm. Select games, including Sunday's championship final, can be seen on COGECO's YourTV network across Ontario.