It was the kind of shot that many club curlers at venues across Canada would relish – a shot to the button for all the marbles.
Mind you, not many club curlers have the chance, or the pressure, to make a draw to the button with $37,000 on the line like Manitoba’s Jeff Stoughton did to win the Travelers All-Stars Curling Skins Game presented by Pinty’s, Sunday (Jan. 12) at the Fenlands Rec Centre.
Stoughton and Alberta’s Kevin Martin faced off in the sold-out, nationally-broadcast (TSN) event final, with $57,000 available: $42,000 in skins and a $15,000 bonus for the winner.
Stoughton, along with third Dave Nedohin, second Brent Laing and lead Ryan Harnden, a team hand-picked during a draft event, Friday (Jan. 10) at the Fenlands, hit the button, on the T-line, as did Martin’s rink consisting of third Ryan Fry, second Carter Rycroft and lead Mark Nichols.
Stoughton, though, was just 11.5 centimetres from the pin and won the $37,000 available after eight ends. In all, the Stoughton foursome won $70,500, including $17,500 in a Saturday (Jan. 11) semifinal win over Newfoundland’s Brad Gushue.
Martin had advanced to the final with an $11,500 to $9,500 Saturday semifinal win over Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.’s Brad Jacobs, who will represent Canada at the Sochi Olympics.
After the game, Stoughton said of picking his team, “I picked a bunch of muckers and future Olympians; it worked out really well for us and it looks pretty good now.”
Throughout the weekend event, about 700 (sold out) curling fans at the Fenlands were treated to outstanding shots, some misses club curlers would find comforting, and a lot of banter and kidding around that would otherwise be absent during high pressure events with more on the line.
With just money on the line, rather than a national championship or world’s title on the line, fans were treated to the lighter side of some of the best curlers in the world.
Stoughton got a lot of mileage out of being an elderly 50 year old, yet he and veteran Martin were in the final of the event; in a semifinal, Laing, unhappy with two of his shots in one end, complained, “I’ve made worse shots with better results” and, being that the teams don’t normally curl together there were issues with terminology.
At one point, Stoughton called for Nedohin to throw “nice weight.” Already in the hack, Nedohin joked with Laing that, “he just wants me to throw whatever will make the shot?” to which Laing said, “yup.” There were even some inside jokes that some curling fans would appreciate. At one point, during a Saturday semifinal discussion of a difficult shot, Laing laughingly proposed throwing a shot away, rather than making a play – ŕ la Kevin Martin move in a past big event. Stoughton replied, “ask Ben” (Martin teammate Hebert), who replied, “Morris (Martin teammate John) called it.”
With fans as close as four metres away from the action, the Skins Game was about as up close and personal as you can get to elite level curling. TSN’s Brian Mudryk kept things hopping during TV breaks with player interviews and several fans were thrilled when, prior to the final, several players tossed extra shirts and jackets into the crowd as keepsakes.
As well, after games, the stars made themselves available for autographs and photos.
The Skins Games was sponsored by Travelers, Pinty’s the Rimrock Hotel, VTech, Chartered Professional Accountants, Nature’s Path, Canada Goose, the Town of Banff and Banff Lake Louise Tourism.
