An extra end decided the President’s Cup mixed champion in the St. Albert Curling Club playoffs.
The Doug McLennan rink, skipped by Colin Jenkyns, stole the winning point in Tuesday’s A-B final after Ferd Caron was unlucky with his last shot.
“They were solid all game long. Full credit to them. They put the pressure on us right up to the eighth end when I had to draw to the full four-foot to force the extra end,” Jenkyns said after the 6-5 nail-bitter. “In the extra end we got fortunate when he got a little wide and it worked out for us.”
Caron was unable to weave his magic with Jenkyns lying shot behind a cluster of rocks.
“I would like my last shot back because I just missed it by a foot,” Caron said. “It was a real tight game. Colin had a couple of real tough shots and he made them throughout the game. He made me shoot my best and he shot his best.”
The eighth President’s Cup in nine years was also the fourth in a row for the McLennan foursome of Jenkyns, normally the team’s second, third Alison Howes and lead Lauren Jenkyns, Colin’s sister.
They will now rock the ice at the 52nd annual Edmonton and area Tournament of Champions, April 7 to 12 at the Glen Allen Curling Club in Sherwood Park.
“It’s definitely a pleasure and an honour to represent the St. Albert Curling Club at the city playdowns. We have a great group of curlers here and it gets tougher and tougher every year when you’ve kind of got that target on your backs. Everybody comes out to play us for sure,” Jenkyns said.
Last year in the city final with McLennan running the show, the Thursday league Titans got skunked 7-0 in six ends by the Les Rogers rink of the Saville Centre and alternate Darcy Corcoran as the winning skip.
It was the second-straight year McLennan lost the final at the 12-team competition.
“It definitely wasn’t the way we wanted to end last season but it’s great to get another trip there and it’s always a privilege. Hopefully we can make the most of it this time around,” Jenkyns said. “We’ve had a solid season for sure. I would say we’re pretty much on calibre where we were last year. There are certainly areas that we have kind of improved on a little bit so we just want to keep building on those.”
McLennan will rejoin the rink for cities after curling up a storm as the third for Team Alberta skipped by Glen Hansen of Hinton at the Canadian Seniors (50-plus) Curling Championships at the Thistle during the mixed playoffs. Alberta finished 9-3 for fourth place.
Jenkyns also guided the team to President’s Cup honours in 2013 with McLennan at nationals.
“We definitely missed him for sure but it’s always kind of a treat to lead the great group that we have,” Jenkyns said of McLennan, who piloted the first St. Albert mixed rink to victory at cities in 2010. “It’s definitely a treat and an honour to be able to skip this rink. I wouldn’t want to be playing with anybody else.”
Burke Atkinson was brought on board for this year’s playoffs as the reigning champions finished 4-0.
“Burke filled in great for us,” Jenkyns said.
The second playoff tussle against Caron started off with the Friday league rink counting one in the opening end before Jenkyns replied with deuces in two and three. The fourth end was blanked.
“We certainly played strong at the beginning. We got a little bit of a lead, which was kind of nice, but they came back strong with a deuce in five,” Jenkyns said.
Caron stole singles in six and seven to lead 5-4 going into eight.
“We unfortunately got behind and we had to steal and once we got into the stealing mode we were putting rocks up front and we were successful and in this last end we weren’t able to do that. We actually got rocks in the house, which was a downfall,” said Caron.
His lineup consisted of second Neil McKay, an honorary life member of the St. Albert club and Caron’s curling buddy for more than two decades, and Karen Stephen and Susan Bell at third and lead, respectively. The ladies were subbing for Ferd’s wife, Rica, and Wendy Milan in the playoffs as Caron finished 4-2.
In the eighth end and rocks scattered in front of the house and in the rings, Jenkyns’ front-end pulled his last shot through traffic to catch a piece of the button to knot it at five.
The extra end featured a bunch of rocks in play. Caron had the majority of them except for one by the opposition that was tricky to get to as he discovered.
“We kind of got off to a good start. Lauren put up a couple of good guards and then we were fortunate enough to get a break along the way and pull it out,” Jenkyns said. “It was a good game.”
Visit www.stalbertgazette.com to view the winning rink’s picture.
