The second President’s Cup in three years and the third overall for the Dale Briske rink was extra satisfying.
“In a way this one is harder almost than getting it the first or second time,” said Briske after the men’s playoff final Wednesday at the St. Albert Curling Club. “It’s at least equal to those other ones for sure.”
Briske, third Les Ferguson, second Rick Dallyn and lead Grant Cook ran the playdown table with four wins as the Tuesday A sectional league playoff entry in the eight-team draw.
“It’s been a pretty good season. We actually stayed at the top on Tuesdays all the way through so we luckily kept it going,” Briske said. “We’ve got a little bit of confidence going so that helps us a lot.”
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The playoff winners roll into the 54th annual Edmonton and area Tournament of Champions, April 7 to 12 at Ellerslie, with high expectations.
“We’ve had some good runs up to the semifinals a couple of times. We just have to break through into that one extra game and if we make it to the final anything can happen so we’re confident we’ll have a good run there as well,” Briske said of playing the club champions in the metro Edmonton region. “It’s very competitive so you can’t get down in any game. If you do you will have to steal to get a bit of a break along the way but the key is to start off strong. We’ve been trying to do that a little more this year and compared to the Oilers, where they start a little slow some periods and then they pick up, we try to start off strong and that’s been working well so far.”
Brisk was also able to read the ice like a book from start to finish this season.
“It changed a little bit after the Scotties (in late January) but we were able to adapt. We loved it really. It was nice and consistent most of the year.”
The final against the Colin Jenkyns started with a bang as Briske counted three in the opening end and never looked back.
“It was a tight battle. We managed to crack a three on the first end so that kind of got us off on the right foot and basically we were then protecting it,” Briske said. “Colin’s team, they’re good shooters all the way through, so if you get behind then they’re going to be doing the same thing to you so it would’ve been a real battle either way but the jump (three ender) helped so much, no question. That’s always huge against any team.”
Jenkyns, the last rock shooter for Chris Keeler, John Forbes and Ben Robinson, drew for one in two and stole a point in three before Briske hit and rolled for a deuce in four and stole singles in five and six to make it 7-2 before the teams shook hands.
“We were able to score a big two on the fourth end and that got us the margin we needed. We just peeled the rest of the way so it worked out well,” said Briske, who also qualified for the 2018 Northern Travellers Club Championship as this year’s playoff winner.
The young and talented Jenkyns’ lineup struggled to gain traction on the slippery comeback slope after the early setback against a veteran foursome that constantly put challenging rocks in play.
“Right from the get go we were on our heels,” said Keeler, who calls the game for the Monday A section league playoff team. “We gave up three and then tried to battle back and it was just a struggle the whole way. They would make a simple shot and then we would have to make an even tougher shot to try and get back into it. It just never panned out.”
Last year in the double-knockout playdown format, which was replaced by two round-robin pools to determine the finalists, Jenkyns beat Briske in the A semifinal and perennial playoff contender Warren Sadoway in the B final before losing the A-B final to Jamie King’s Hootie and the Old Fish rink 10-3 in six ends.
“We really, really wanted this one. Our lead (Robinson) is not going to be with us next year so we wanted to win it for him. We thought we had it this year but it just didn’t play out,” said Keeler, who reached the final of the St. Albert Integra Tire and Auto Centre Open Bonspiel in November curling with Jenkyns, Robinson and Colin’s sister, Lauren.
