Winning the Marc Kennedy Junior Classic was better than expected for the Nathan Molberg rink.
“We’re elated,” said Molberg, a St. Albert skip, after Sunday’s A final in the competitive division at the U18 bonspiel, presented by Sarasota Homes & Realty.
“It’s the one we wanted to win. It’s a big spiel.”
Molberg, third Mitchell Clark of Grande Cache, second Owen Tester of Fort McMurray and lead Noah Penner of St. Albert exchanged shot for shot with the Jared Palanuik rink of the Oilfield Curling Club in Black Diamond before prevailing late in the game for the 5-3 decision at the St. Albert Curling Club.
“It’s the last spiel of the year and two of the guys (Tester and Penner) are aging out so for this to be our last game as a team and to win it, it’s great,” Molberg said. “It’s one of the highlights of the year for sure.”
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Every end was a chess match for points.
“We traded ones the entire game so it was really close,” Molberg said. “They’re a fantastic team. They made some fantastic shots and we had some good ones too. The boys did great.”
Molberg stole singles in seven and eight to ice the victory.
“It was a hard fought battle back and forth. As you can see on the scoreboard, it was only one point every end,” Palanuik said. “I’m proud of the way we played but just too many little missed shots, like on the wrong side of the inch I guess.”
The opening point was a steal by Molberg following a measurement and Palanuik answered with one in two.
The trend continued as the teams swapped singles before Palanuik made it 3-2 in five after putting together a potential big end before settling for a steal of one.
Molberg’s hit and stick for one in six while facing two counters was followed by steals in the last two ends.
“We were in some trouble in six but we made some nice runbacks to clear things up and then in seven we got our steal and the momentum sort of shifted after that,” said Molberg.
His first shot in six was the deal breaker.
“They were sitting three all in a row and we threw a wicked run triple that cleared things up and made the way for one.”
The seventh end also boiled down to skip’s rocks.
“I was coming out of the hack a little wobbly and didn’t quite get the rock to where I wanted it and Nathan made an amazing draw around,” Palanuik said. “They stole that end so I guess that was kind of the turning point. They got the point and it was kind of hard to come back from that.”
Leading by one without the hammer in eight for Molberg was “stressful” and Palanuik in scoring position.
“It was sort of a tense situation,” said Molberg, who calmly drew through traffic to bite the button with his first shot. “We knew Jared had a good chance at making that runback at the end.”
Palanuik had to navigate his last delivery through a cluster of rocks for a crack at Molberg’s shot rock.
“Our goal was to kind of slash the yellow on the side into the button to get the blue one out of there but when I threw it I threw it with a little bit of pop so it stays longer out and it just kind of started to float out so we got a little too far out and hit the wrong side of the rock,” Palanuik said.
The loss was the first of the bonspiel for Palanuik, third Liam Purcell, second Pacen Anderson and lead Ben Helston.
“We’ve been on the wrong side of the A final a couple of times this year like today,” said Palanuik, a Grade 12 Vulcan student.
Palanuik’s rink reached the quarter-finals last year without Helston, who won the competitive A final curling with Evan Van Amsterdan, Jared Scharff and Andres Van Amsterdam on a thrown-together Saville/Crestwood/Calgary/ Garrison foursome.
“We look forward to the end of the season because we get to come to the Marc Kennedy Classic. It’s a really fun event and there is a lot of nice people around to run it,” said Palanuik, 17.
Molberg qualified for the A playoff bracket after finishing in a three-way tie for second at 1-2 in pool play.
“We actually played pretty badly in the round robin but we had a good draw to the button to get us into the playoffs and really ramped things up Saturday and today,” said the Grade 11 home-school student. “The draw to the button was worth a game and we used it and it worked out.
“Today we went in hoping we would win and we did.”
Molberg’s lineup that competed at junior northerns in December included Penner, skip for the 2017 Edmonton zone mixed championship rink from Bellerose Composite High School.
“This is our first really competitive bonspiel win,” said Molberg, 16, who didn’t qualify for last year’s playoffs with a different rink. “This is the first one with a lot of the higher ranked teams in the province so it’s a big one.”
This year’s Kennedy Classic consisted of 56 rinks, which are 16 more than the inaugural event.
“I love it more this year than last year. To see their energy and the amount of teams and the quality of teams is so exciting for my wife Nicole and I,” said Kennedy, a three-time Brier winner, two-time world champion and 2010 Olympic gold medallist who recently curled in his eighth Brier and the third with the Kevin Koe rink.
“Curling is a community full of great people and the kids are great kids. They’re polite. They’re well mannered. They’re so nice. They treat us with so much respect and we’re just happy to be able to give back to the game and do this for the kids.”
This year’s divisional format featured 28 competitive, 20 intermediate and eight recreational rinks.
Overall, 26 rinks hailed from outside the Edmonton area.
The St. Albert Curling Club was represented by 39 males and females from the Little Rock and junior programs.
The St. Albert rinks were Molberg, Geary and Oake in competitive, Costa, Davis, Graham and Lozinsky in intermediate and Bakos, Van Amsterdam and Wong in recreational.
The Kennedy Classic replaced the long-time and successful Kevin Martin Junior Bonspiel and both years games were staged at the St. Albert and Jasper Place clubs.
“Junior spiels when I was young were so much fun and I’ve said often to people that the Kevin Martin spiel at the end of the year was the best time of the year because all of your stressful competitions were over, it was spring time so the sun was coming up and it was the end of the year and you had a chance to spend time with friends and still get a couple of competitive games in,” said the St. Albert Curling Club wall of fame inductee in 2011, a three-time U20 Alberta champion and national silver medallist as the second for Carter Rycroft in 1998.
“It was just this wonderful time of the year so to be able to do something similar to that, and I know the kids are having a good time, it’s just wonderful. I have lots of flashbacks. It’s hard to believe where the years have gone to be honest with you but it’s great. We’ve had so much great feedback and the kids love being here so we’ll do this for as long as we possibly can.”
