Sunday’s final in the Mission Liquor Mart Mixed Bonspiel between Dave Klatchuk and Warren Sadoway ended sooner than expected at the St. Albert Curling Club.
Klatchuk was leading 5-3 in the eighth and last end, when Sadoway took a nasty spill and dislodged several rocks in the rings. After a lengthy deliberation between the St. Albert skips, Sadoway decided to shake hands with five rocks remaining in the end.
“For it to end like that is really, really unfortunate. I just feel so bad when that happens in a game like this,” Klatchuk said with a glum expression etched across his face.
As play unfolded on a shot by Klatchuk’s third, Sharon Monk, Sadoway tripped over a rock buried in the back corner of the sheet and tumbled to the ice.
“The rock was coming in at a good speed and I was moving over and I just tripped over the side rock and all heck broke loose,” said a sheepish-looking Sadoway. “I don’t think I’ve ever done that before in my life.”
As curlers from both rinks crowded around the house, Klatchuk and Sadoway debated how to fix the damage.
“The challenge with what transpired is he fell but his broom fell and went into all the rocks as they were going all over the place and because they were interfered with by the broom there was just no way of knowing where they were going to end up at that point,” Klatchuk said.
Three rocks were eventually pulled off the rings, but before Sandy Sadoway could deliver the next rock in the end, her skip decided to officially pull the plug.
“There was so much chaos. No one could really figure out what the end result was. Ultimately the end decision was it was undoable to recover from it and I caused it. That’s fine. Stuff happens,” Sadoway said.
Klatchuk praised Sadoway’s sportsmanship.
“Warren is a gentleman. He just said in fairness we should just call the game at that point,” said the St. Albert Curling Club president. “I feel really bad for him because I would like to see the rest of the game get played out.”
Leading up to that point, Klatchuk scored the game’s only deuce to snap a 3-3 deadlock in the seventh end.
“Both teams had trouble making the perfect hit and roll and hence couldn’t get a deuce until the seventh end,” Sadoway said.
A biter early in seven by Klatchuk set the stage for the go-ahead points.
“I’m not sure if that was the intended shot but he ended up with one on the far corner so ultimately that became the deuce point that cost us,” Sadoway said. “I was thinking of taking a run at it and then I thought that’s not going to help any because he can just blank the end and have the hammer coming home.”
With last shot Klatchuk executed a hit and roll after Sadoway tried drawing into scoring position.
“Warren tried to go around the guard on his last one and then I was able to hit and flop in for the two,” Klatchuk said.
The defensive struggle between the Friday night mixed league teams featured a steal of one by Sadoway in the first end and Klatchuk stealing a point in three to lead 2-1.
“You can’t get a tighter game than that. Both teams played pretty well,” said Klatchuk.
His line-up of Monk (filling in for the injured Maureen Forbes), Bob Forbes and Janice Klatchuk pocketed $610 after going 4-0 in the 21-team draw.
“The competition was great in this spiel and just about every game we had to scramble a little bit, especially against Neil McKay. He had the hammer in the last end and we were able to steal one to secure the victory, which was lucky on our part,” Klatchuk said.
The Sadoway foursome, with Tim and Leanne Fell at front end, collected $425 after finishing 4-1.
“We had a tough [semifinal against the Schreiber rink] this morning. We didn’t play very well at all and just as luck would have it we managed to squeak out a win. In this game we actually played a lot better. We just came up short but that’s OK. We ended up winning some money along the way so all is good,” Sadoway said.
HOG LINES: Rounding out the rest of Sunday’s event winners was the Erlandson rink over Frank Lane in B, the Marks rink beat Colin Jenkyns in C and Jackie-Rae Greening knocked off the Hoffart rink in D.
A 10-team beginners/prospect bonspiel was held in conjunction with the mixed competition and in the AA final Stacy Burzminski defeated Grant Kolodychuk. Della Hahn slid past Brent Biollo in BB and Brian Breaky iced Dennis Lafleur in CC.
The combined prize money for both bonspiels was $4,340.
On tap next is the Feb. 23 to 26 St. Albert Centre Ladies’ Bonspiel.
