It took Mike Hutchings longer than expected to celebrate his fifth St. Albert men’s bonspiel championship but it was worth the wait.
Sunday’s 5-3 win over Warren Sadoway was worth a cool $850 for the whole weekend.
“It feels great of course any time you can be successful,” said Hutchings.
His Boreal Laser Inc. foursome of Brian McPherson, Steve Hutchings and Derek Skarban finished 5-0 in the 24-rink OK Tire sponsored men’s spiel.
“We played through some tough games earlier in the weekend so to be able to do that just builds character,” Hutchings said. “At the same time, we didn’t play very well as a team. We struggled this weekend and myself I personally struggled the last two or three games. The boys kind of set some stuff up and we let some opportunities go but we stayed with it.”
Last year, a South Korean rink preparing for the 2013 Winter Universiade Games beat Hutchings 9-8 to snap his winning streak of four consecutive St. Albert spiels. Steals of four in five and a deuce in six put the Koreans on top 9-5.
“It’s great to come back after last year’s disappointment because that was a tough one to lose,” said Hutchings, who led 5-2 after three ends in last year’s final.
This year Hutchings never surrendered a steal but did blank the first and sixth ends in his quest for a big end.
“We had control for most of the game. It was a defensive one. It was a lot of fairly wide open stuff. We didn’t get to play a lot of finesse shots,” said the Bellerose Composite High School science teacher. “There weren’t any big, big shots made but a couple of misses here and there by each team and we capitalized on them.”
The savvy Sadoway had his fingers crossed Hutchings would slip up.
“It was kind of a boring game a little bit because we were running so many ends but I kind of did that thinking we stand a better chance if we wait for their mistakes instead of being too aggressive,” Sadoway said. “We took our chances when we saw an opportunity and I had a couple of opportunities but I couldn’t quite make my last shot.”
After the first end the teams traded deuces before Hutchings counted two in four. He was lying one with last rock but his draw attempt veered off course and hit a Sadoway rock in front of the house, triggering a chain reaction of stones bumping stones that ended with a biter. A measurement determined second shot.
In the next end, Sadoway was gunning for a deuce but hit and rolled out with the hammer and settled for one on the wrong side of a 4-3 score.
In seven, Sadoway narrowly missed his last shot to give Hutchings a draw for two but his rock was swept out of harm’s way with only one counting.
In the last end, Hutchings ran Sadoway out of rocks during skip’s stones.
Missed opportunities were the bottom line for Sadoway in the loss.
“In the fifth end, I had a chance for two and didn’t quite make that and even in this last end there was a fairly straightforward chance for two,” he said. “It sure is a funny game, isn’t it?”
It was the first loss of the season for Sadoway’s Monday night rink of Dave Rogers, Tim Fell and Jeff Wilson, a newcomer to the team that switched leagues from Tuesday because of work commitments.
“We had a fantastic weekend (3-1 record). We really didn’t expect to be in the A final but we had pretty solid games right through. This was actually the only game we played a full eight ends,” said the perennial President’s Cup playoff contender in the St. Albert men’s and mixed leagues. “We were on a little bit of a roll but we came out a little off today and these guys were awesome. You can’t miss too many against them. They’re good guys to curl against and awesome shot makers.”
Hutchings dodged a couple of bullets en route to the final.
“We played a pretty tough team in Les Eglauer (an Edmonton Super League rink in the quarter-finals). It was a back and forth match and luckily we came through it but it was a close one,” he said. “In our semifinal game (against the Fleming rink) both teams were kind of struggling with the ice and it ended up we won in an extra end. It took some massive fighting back as we were down and out in that game but we clawed our way back in it. The other team had a shot to win it in the eighth end and hit and rolled out so we ended up being tied.”
Hutchings’ 4-3 Super League rink used the spiel as a stepping-stone for the provincial playdowns. Last year with Chris King in the lineup instead of Hutchings’ younger brother they were eliminated in the quarter-finals at northerns.
“We’re trying to get ready for playdowns so we wanted to come in and have a good solid weekend and play well,” said Hutchings, 33.
