The winning team at the 14th annual Canadian Open Stick Curling Championship committed an act of thievery in Thursday’s final.
Tom and Rae Campbell of the St. Vital Curling Club in Winnipeg pulled off the great escape with the Sure-Shot Stick Trophy in their possession after stealing the tying point in the sixth end and the winning point in the second extra end against Chris Pieper and Tim Smith of the Armstrong Curling Club.
“This is so exciting, absolutely so exciting,” exclaimed Rae after the 3-2 result at the St. Albert Curling Club. “The tournament has been top notch right from start to finish and this puts the icing on the cake.”
The husband and wife tandem capitalized on their first appearance in the final after coming close in previous nationals.
“This is the big one,” said Tom with a burst of pride.
The Campbells finished 8-2 at the 48 two-person stick nationals.
‘We had a good feeling about being here,” Tom said. “We felt we had the potential but we knew we were in tough. There is a lot of good curlers here but we felt we could hold our own if we played well and if we liked the ice surface. It’s quite keen and that’s the way we like it.”
The final started with two blanked ends before Pieper and Smith counted two in three. The Campbells replied with one in four and after the fifth end was blanked Pieper was looking at two shot rocks with his last attempt but hit and rolled out to give up the equalizer in six.
“It was a chess match, absolutely. I missed a couple of shots on that third end and let him have his two so that was the whole ball game until we got that one the sixth,” said Rae, the second female in tournament history to play on the winning team.
In the first extra end, after Smith and Rae threw three rocks apiece and the Manitobans lying one, the curlers switched ends for Pieper and Tom to deliver their team’s remaining three shots. Tom’s last attempt was a heater through the rings and Pieper was slow and short of the empty house.
“The thing about extra ends in stick curling is that you've thrown all of your rocks from one end the whole game until that point where the fellows at the other end have to come down and throw it back that way and the ice is different. It’s keener so when he seen me throw mine through I guess he felt that he needed to take some off and took too much off of it,” Tom said.
The next extra end the Campbells protected a rock around the four-foot with a guard close to the centre line and when it came down to the last delivery, and the Armstrong duo lying second shot, Pieper nicked the guard.
“I felt we put the guard about as good as we could. It could've been a little more closer and a little more centred but I was happy to make him throw his last rock. I knew it was a tough shot,” Tom said.
Pieper took the loss in stride.
“I screwed up,” the mayor of Armstrong said with a laugh. “It is hard (in the extra end when you make the switch to throw rocks) because you have a different perspective on it for sure but there's no excuses. I was light on the draw and I was light on the takeout. We had one in the house so I could've whacked it.
“I was a little over cautious than anything and a little light and it bent a lot.”
The result left the British Columbia provincial finalists with a record of 7-3.
“It was close the whole game. It was 2-2. A very well curled game by both teams,” Pieper said. “We had a great game against the Campbells. They’re worthy champions and they've been at this gig for a long time and we were proud to be able to play against them. They’re excellent sports and we had a great time with them.”
One of the victories for the fourth-place finishers at the 2017 nationals at the Bluenose Curling Club in New Glasgow, N.S. was 3-2 in the semifinals against Derrell Sears and John Campbell, the team that beat them in the provincial final as well as club mates in Armstrong.
“I’m getting long in the tooth and some of my shots are not as good as they used to be so he puts up with me and we do well,” Smith, 78, a retired rancher and entrepreneur who has five grandkids and four step-grandkids.
Smith and Campbell were also Sure-Shot Stick Trophy winners curling together at nationals in 2011 at Maple Ridge, B.C., 2014 at St. Albert and 2016 at Vernon and were finalists in 2012 at Regina.
“I’ve won with Campbell three times and I'm still very nervous going out there but this last game I wasn't as nervous as I was against John and Derrell. I was more nervous with them because we knew them too well,” Smith said.
“We curl against them all the time,” Pieper added.
Overall, the national finalists had a blast during the four-day competition.
“The tournament was great. The volunteers did everything. The food was great. The ice is superb, they looked after the ice very well, and our accommodations were good,” said Pieper, 70, a former forest industry worker and the grandfather of three.
The Campbells quickly settled into their St. Albert surroundings after somewhat of a rocky start with 4-3 outcomes against Tony Van Brabant and Scott Holland, the 2017 Alberta champions from Morinville, and Mike McMullan and Don Kuchelyma of the St. Albert and Jasper Place curling clubs and members of the 2015 Alberta Wheelchair Curling Championship team.
“Our first two games we were one down coming home both games and we had to get two in the last end to win the games so those were the nail-bitters,” said Tom, 68, a retired Caterpillar dealership employee in Winnipeg. “We didn’t play very well in our third game (7-3 loss in five ends to Ernie Oliver and Leroy Clarke of the Assiniboine Memorial Curling Club in Winnipeg) and got knocked down into the B event and then we got more and more confident about where to put the broom down and stuff like that.”
The Campbells rattled off four wins in a row after the 4-3 setback to Randy and Ruby Olson of St. Albert, the 2018 Alberta finalists.
The second victory of the tournament against Ryan Meyer and Dennis Fitzgerald, the 2014 national finalists and 2018 Alberta champions from Morinville, was 4-2 in the semifinals.
“We got stronger and stronger and stronger. We addressed the ice and you couldn't give it that too much extra. You had to really stop and think about it all the time and we did,” said Rae, 67, who worked for an insurance company.
The Campbells, who will celebrate their 48th wedding anniversary this summer, were one of the nine husband and wife teams at nationals.
So, are there any challenges curling together?
“Actually, no,” Tom said.
“Not us,” Rae added.
“She is a better curler than I am. She’s done better in her younger years than I've ever had. I have complete confidence in what she is doing,” said Tom of the lead for the 2002 Manitoba senior (50-plus) women’s championship rink skipped by Elaine Jones.
Visit www.albertastickcurling.ca for all the scores at nationals.
