There will be a new rink heading to the Montana's Brier in Kelowna, B.C., at the end of the month and there's a very good chance it's the first time a team out of Hay River will get the chance to do so.

Team Bartling out of the Hay River Curling Club won the right to represent the NWT at the Canadian men's curling championship after a 7-6 extra-end win over Team Koe out of Yellowknife in the final of the NWT Men's Curling Championship in Hay River on Sunday. Bartling's crew stole a single in the 11th end to pull out the win.

D'arcy Delorey, who plays third on the team, said the guys were still soaking things up when reached by SA国际影视传媒 on Monday, but they always felt they had a chance to win it.

"We always believed we could," he said. "They have a lot more experience than we do, but we put this team together with a eye on giving it a shot and we managed to do it."

Three teams - two from Yellowknife and the Hay River rink - played a double round-robin, meaning each team played each other twice to determine placings for the playoffs. Koe won all four of his games, which Bartling and Greg Skauge, the other Yellowknife rink, each won just one. Bartling and Skauge met up in the semifinal on Sunday morning with Bartling emerging victorious in a back-and-forth contest, 6-5, thanks to Bartling drawing to the four-foot to score a single in the 10th end.

In the final, Koe started with last rock and scored a single in the first end to take an early lead. Bartling counted a deuce in the second end to go out in front, 2-1, which Koe answered with two of his own in the third to retake the lead, 3-2. A blank on the fourth end preceded Koe stealing a single to increase his lead to 4-2 at the fifth-end break.

Both teams traded singles in the sixth and seventh ends before Koe stole a single in the eighth to go up 6-3. Bartling got two back in the ninth to cut the deficit to 6-5 and would end up stealing the single he needed in the 10th end to tie it at 6-6 and force bonus curling.

In the 11th end, Bartling had a rock frozen on the button behind one of Koe's rocks. Koe tried a spill takeout to clear everything and leave that rock in the house to score, but that didn't happen as he wrecked his last shot on that very stone, leaving Bartling's stone in place for the stolen single and the punching of the ticket to Kelowna.

"We had a couple of missed opportunities earlier in the game, but we kept on plugging away and put pressure on them," said Delorey. "We ended up on the right side of the inch that time."

As mentioned, it's most likely the first time Hay River has been the representative community for the NWT at the Brier; Delorey said he's played in the old territorial playdowns in the past when it was just one spot for all three territories at the Brier, but this will be the first time he'll get to go.

"There's a banner up in the curling club from the Scotties (Tournament of Hearts) when a team from Hay River played there in the 1980s, so it'll be nice to get one up for the Brier now," he said.

If you're wondering about the make-up of the team, Bartling is from Drayton Valley, Alta., and plays as the out-of-jurisdiction player. Each team is allowed one player from outside their province or territory to play under Curling Canada rules. Norm Bassett, who plays second with the team, also lives in Alberta now, but is eligible to play for the team under Curling Canada's birthright rule as he was born in the NWT. Delorey and Eric Preston both live in Hay River.

The focus now turns to preparing for the big show which begins on Feb. 28. There's no idea yet who the Hay River foursome will be playing, but Delorey knows it will be the best of the best in Canadian curling.

"The field is always so tough because it's such a high level of skill," he said. "We'll go down and try to treat it like any other bonspiel and try to put some pressure on the other teams and win where we can. Anything can happen because curling is a game of momentum, so if we get things going right and get some confidence behind us, who knows? Jamie had a great run last year and we'll just try to get into a groove and get some early confidence."