Team North America rocked the house at the World Financial Group Continental Cup of Curling in St. Albert.
Three men’s and three women’s rinks combined to collect 298 out of a possible 400 points, as Team North America routed Team World by a margin of 196 points in the Ryder Cup of curling.
“It’s a really good ending to a great event,” said a smiling Marc Kennedy, St. Albert’s Olympic gold medallist with the Kevin Martin rink.
Team North America also broke the cup record of 290 points it held since 2007.
“Everyone came ready to play and gelled really well,” Kennedy said. “Looking at the line-ups I thought we were the underdogs but I don’t think the world team was at their best this week and we jumped all over them.”
In Saturday night’s skins games, Team North America surpassed the magic 201 mark needed to claim victory by winning all three 30-point matches with dramatic steals in the eighth and last end.
“To get to 201 points when we did was awesome,” Kennedy said.
Jennifer Jones of Winnipeg swiped a 22-point skin to defeat Switzerland’s Mirjam Ott 22-8 in the women’s match.
Kevin Koe of Edmonton stole a skin worth nine points to beat Sweden’s Niklas Edin 21-9 in the men’s contest.
In the mixed skins game, the foursome of John Morris (third on the Martin rink), third Ann Swisshelm (second for United States rink skipped by Erika Brown), Kennedy and lead Nina Spatola (third on the Brown rink) stole a nine-point skin in the 19-11 decision over Scotland’s David Murdoch, after the game had ended with a carryover.
The skips drew to the button to determine the winner. Murdoch, the 2009 world champion, got a chunk of the four-foot as the first thrower. Morris followed by putting his rock right on the dot. Kennedy and Spatola swept feverishly in dragging it the distance, aided by Swisshelm’s broom work towards the end as a jam-packed Performance Arena erupted in celebration.
“The ice was faster than the whole week so I told Johnny don’t be heavy because we’ve been heavy all game on every draw and he threw it perfect,” Kennedy said. “To be able to sweep it the last 10 feet with Nina to get it on the bottom, it was just a perfect ending.”
The result gave Team North America 217 points, compared to Team World’s 73.
After the winning shot by Morris, Team North America poured off the players’ bench and engulfed their teammates.
“I remember when we lost in Camrose [208-192 in 2008], it was my first Continental Cup, and to see the world team come over the bench and celebrate, it was a gut-wrenching feeling. We all hate to lose and to see them enjoy the victory that much made us want to win this one really bad. We weren’t going to take the foot off the pedal,” Kennedy said. “The best part of the event is the camaraderie with your teammates. That’s the most fun and it was great to see everyone so excited when we won.”
The four-day competition wrapped up with Sunday’s 55-point skins games. Cheryl Bernard of Calgary downed China’s Bingyu Wang 42-13 in draw 10 and Martin prevailed 39-16 over Thomas Ulsrud in the 11th and last draw.
“It was a real nice feeling to win it and do it well,” Bernard said. “We looked at it as practice for the TSN skins [this weekend] so it was good that way. It was also about pride too. You don’t want to lose those games. It doesn’t matter if it’s worth nothing or $13,000, you want to win.”
In a rematch of the 2010 Olympic gold-medal game, Martin stole a 35-point skin in the seventh end against Ulsrud en route to clinching the game and total points record, as well as earning a cool $13,000 for Team North America.
“It’s really good what they did to put some money on the line, just in case [the points race] was over by then,” said Kennedy, who curled 94 per cent in the win against Ulsrud and 88 per cent overall in the competition. “We’ve got the TSN skins game [this weekend] so it’s a bit of a tune-up for us to get back into that really aggressive skins type of game. It will help us find our draw weight.”
In the TSN semifinals, Martin plays Bernard and Koe is up against Murdoch.
“I’m looking forward to it. We have nothing to lose and they have a lot,” said Bernard.
The Olympic silver medallist had a hoot in her Continental Cup debut.
“I really enjoyed it. I even enjoyed mixed doubles and I never thought I would say I would, but I did,” said Bernard, who teamed up with Ben Hebert (lead on Martin’s rink) to beat Germany’ Andrea Schoepp (2010 World champion) and Sweden’s Sebastian Kraupp (third for Edin’s rink) 6-3.
Her rink of third Susan O’Connor, second Carolyn Darbyshire and lead Cori Morris didn’t know what to expect when they walked into Servus Credit Union Place for Wednesday’s practice session.
“There was something new all the time so it’s good to put yourself in that position. What do they say — do something you’re afraid of every day? Well, we did that a bit,” said Bernard, whose rink was 3-0 in team play. “We wanted to have fun, figure out the ice, relax, use it for some practice for us for provincials and kind of lean on the people with experience because it was so new for us.”
Bernard, 36, was surprised to see so many people in the stands. The total event attendance was 16,340, highlighted by a near sell-out of 1,911 on Saturday night and 1,757 for the last draw Sunday.
“Sometimes some of these events are tough to get the people out, but St. Albert was incredible. The crowds came and they supported in minus … what was it … a billon here? It was amazing.”
Kennedy, 28, was also thrilled to see his hometown embrace the event.
“The whole thing was just awesome. To see the crowds the last couple of days, St. Albert really did rise to the occasion. I’m really proud to be from this city. I know they can pretty much carry any major event they want to, that’s how much this community supports their sporting events. It was really special from start to finish and I’ve just been really fortunate to be part of the whole process,” said the face of the Continental Cup as the event’s poster boy.
The winning payout was $65,000 for Team North America, including $13,000 for the final men’s skins game ($2,500 per member –—24 players, one captain, one coach). Team World received $26,000 ($1,000 per member).
