An unexpected President’s Cup victory extended the season for the Warren Sadoway rink.
“I never thought I would be curling in April. I never even thought it was an option,” said Sadoway of the upcoming 54th annual Edmonton and area Tournament of Champions for the St. Albert Curling Club mixed playoff winners.
The longtime Friday night lineup of Sadoway, wife Sandy, and Tim and Leanne Fell are returning to cities, April 7 to 12 at Ellerslie, for the first time since 2006 after beating Dale Throndson 6-2 in seven ends in Wednesday’s final.
“We’re going to do our best, absolutely. We’re playing pretty solid right now,” Sadoway said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve won (the President’s Cup). There are a lot of good curlers in St. Albert and this year we just sort of got hot near the end.”
Visit www.stalbertgazette.com to view the team picture.
The last crack at club honours for Sadoway was the 6-3 loss to Doug McLennan in the A-B final in 2014 when the playoff format was a double-knockout competition.
This year, eight teams were divided into two pools and the top teams advanced to the final. A draw to the button tabulation for all the teams decided any tiebreakers.
“It’s something different this time so maybe we got a little bit of a lucky break the way the playoffs went but we played good enough to win our section on Friday nights and win our way through the playoffs so I’m really happy and proud for the team,” Sadoway said.
The coveted mixed crown was up for grabs with McLennan – winner of ninth President’s Cup in 10 years and the last five in a row were with Alison Howes, Colin Jenkyns and his sister, Lauren – curling with a different cast of characters this year.
The final against Throndson, wife, Lynn, last-rock shooter Jamie Pallett and wife, Karen, from the Friday night league started off with Sadoway blanking the first end before scoring a deuce in two and then stealing singles in three and four.
Throndson settled for one in five and the next end stole a point to trail by two.
The teams shook hands after Sadoway counted two with the hammer in seven.
“It was a tight match. We were kind of in control for most of the game but it didn’t feel like it. Even after the fourth end we were doing well but we didn’t have a big lead,” Throndson said. “At any given time all it takes is one bad mistake can happen and it almost did for us in the sixth end. We ended giving up a steal of one but it looked a little dicey and they might get a steal of two on us or something worse.
“You’ve just got to play end to end so it turned out well.”
