Les Ferguson fired the winning shot for the Dale Briske rink in the President’s Cup final Thursday at the St. Albert Curling Club.
The pistol by the rink’s third thrower put his team in position to score a deuce in the eighth end to defeat the Ron Manson squad 6-5 to take the men’s championship.
“Les made a really tight shot through the hole and that was the turning point in the end,” Briske said.
Garry Guenette, the skip for the second place finishers in the A-B playoff with Manson on holidays, was unsuccessful in his bid for shot rock while trying to penetrate a wall of granite.
“That shot through the port was the difference. That was basically the game,” Guenette said.
The hard-fought affair was too close to call until last rocks.
“It was back and forth the whole game. There was really no flashes of brilliance, just consistent shooting by both teams,” said Guenette.
His line-up of third Buddy Beley, second Mike Howes and sub Colin Jenkyns at lead counted one in the first end with a hit and stick. The Monday night league team added another point with a biter in two as Briske misfired with the hammer.
Briske battled back with one in three and a steal of two in four to lead 3-2.
“The third end was probably critical because we were facing a couple and luckily we managed to get a draw in for the one. It sort of turned the tide for us a little bit, otherwise it probably would’ve been out of reach if we hadn’t,” Briske said.
Guenette regained the lead in five with the hammer for a deuce after a snafu by Briske with his last shot.
Briske pulled even in six and in seven Guenette’s last delivery broke the tie.
“It was a really good game by two pretty good teams and it basically came down to last rocks,” said Briske, who didn’t have to make his last throw in the deciding end.
Rick Dallyn and Carsten Mortensen, subbing for Doug de Bruijn, formed the front end for the Tuesday night league team’s undefeated run in the eight-team double-knockout playoff draw.
“Everything worked out well for us. We got stronger as the year went on, especially after Christmas, and now we’re going to cities,” Briske said.
The 49th annual Edmonton and area Tournament of Champions starts April 10 at the Jasper Place Curling Club.
“It’s very important to represent the club as best we can because everyone wants their rep to do as good as possible against the others in the field,” Briske said. “Hopefully we can bring home a banner. It would be nice to hang one on the wall at the club.”
Last year Jamie King’s five-man rink of Craig King, Ralph Killips, Brian Pfeifer and Elson Keown captured their second Tournament of Champions crown in six years as the six-time defending President’s Cup winners. Previous champions were Roger Comeau (1973), Gerry Dux (1980), Jim Lait (1983) and Dan Holowaychuk (1989).
Two years ago King defeated Briske 8-6 in eight ends and 7-1 in four ends as the B-side challenger in the St. Albert playoffs. This year King failed to make the playoff cut in the Thursday night league.
“It’s a relief to win it this time. You don’t get to the final too many times so that loss two years ago was a bit of an albatross for us,” said Briske.
His rink will also represent St. Albert at the 2013 Dominion Club northern playdowns.
