Dave Klatchuk was nifty at 50 Thursday in knocking off the reigning mixed playoff champion at the St. Albert Curling Club.
“This is awesome,” the birthday boy declared after the 8-2 romp in five ends over Doug McLennan in the late draw. “Doug gave me a bit of a present today, but he will be a lot harder on me tomorrow for sure.”
The sudden-death match for the club title in the double-knockout format was staged Friday but the score was unavailable at press time. The winner advances to the Tournament of Champions next month at Jasper Place.
Klatchuk, third Maureen Forbes, second Bob Forbes and lead Janice Klatchuk have curled together for several years but have never celebrated a club championship before. They qualified for the playoffs with 13 wins in the Friday night league.
“We’re not the top team here but we’re definitely one of the better ones,” said the happy skip. “We haven’t done too much in the playoffs before. We’ve won an event in a bonspiel but that’s it. That’s why this win is big. We’re an up and coming team and they’re at the top of the heap.”
The stunning loss was only the second defeat of the season for McLennan’s rink and their first since late October as they bowed out to Frank Lane in the A semifinal of the Mixed Harvest Classic Bonspiel in St. Albert.
In playoff action this week, McLennan breezed through the A bracket of the eight-team draw with wins over the Bonner, Gunderson and Clayton teams.
Klatchuk’s foursome took a longer route to the finals. After dropping the opening game to Gunderson, they reeled off victories against Bonner, Caron, Sadoway and Clayton and needed to beat McLennan twice to claim the top prize.
“Losing that first one was a little bit of a tough thing because we thought to win that many in a row to even get to the finals was going to be tough, plus we’re tired too. We played two games [Wednesday] night and now another two games today,” said Klatchuk, who polished off Clayton in the B final in Thursday’s early draw for a date with McLennan. “We played a lot of tough games to even get this far. [Wednesday] night we had to go to an extra end with Sadoway so that was another big win for us.”
McLennan, third Alison Howes, second Colin Jenkyns and sub Nicole Bellamy, filling in for lead Ashley Ferguson, never got on track against Klatchuk. A plethora of missed shots by the back end left the first-place Thursday night league team scrambling to keep the score respectable.
“We were just trying not to let him get too many and it worked out that we got a few,” Klatchuk said.
After giving up a steal of one in the first end, Klatchuk counted three in two with a draw to the house with last shot.
“That really helped. The team settled down after that,” Klatchuk said.
The shift in momentum continued in the third with a steal of one as Bellamy took a spectacular spill in the rings that burned a rock on McLennan’s last shot. The takeout attempt through traffic of Klatchuk’s shot rock by the button would have given McLennan multiple points.
Klatchuk had a big end shaping up in four until a hit and stick by McLennan with the hammer produced a point.
In the fifth end, Klatchuk had lots of rocks in play to work with. After McLennan messed up his last shot, Klatchuk’s tap back for four sealed the deal.
The loss left the hard-throwing club president shaking his head in disbelief over the shaky effort by the three-time defending champs and 2006 finalists.
As for Klatchuk, he was thrilled to play in Friday’s winner-take-all match.
“We’re having a real good year and I hope it just continues,” said the club’s vice-president.
