Day one at the World Financial Group Continental Cup of Curling was a smashing success at Servus Credit Union Place.
“It’s been a great show so far,” declared Blake MacDonald, the hard-throwing third with the Kevin Koe rink on Team North America. “The city has a lot to be proud of. The crowds are great and all the volunteers have done an amazing job of setting it up. Everything has been fantastic.”
Wednesday’s impressive opening ceremonies set the stage for exciting shot-making action the next day at Performance Arena.
“I don’t know if it could’ve gone any better. Lots of fans. Good curling. Great volunteers. It’s tremendous,” said an excited Marc Kennedy, the poster boy of the Continental Cup as St. Albert’s Olympic gold medallist. “From a team standpoint everybody has really bonded. We’re playing well and we got off to a good early lead.”
Styled somewhat after the Ryder Cup golf format, points are awarded in the team, mixed doubles, singles and skins disciplines. After three draws Team North America racked up a huge 42-12 lead over Team World with four wins in six team games and a three-game sweep in mixed doubles.
“Obviously, the fact that we’ve got the lead is a great thing. For us, two years ago at the Continental Cup, it was probably the other way around. We were getting smoked,” MacDonald said of the 36-18 lead for Team World after the opening day in Camrose in 2008.
This year’s event is billed as the game seven showdown, with the series tied at three wins apiece. The first team to earn 201 of the 400 available points is the champion.
“This a good start. These points are going to come in handy at the end, for sure,” said veteran skip Kevin Martin, who is competing in his third Continental Cup. “At these events there is a lot of fun going on, and that happens the first two days. However it changes a lot on the weekend. A lot of stress and a lot of pressure happens at the end, especially for the crowd and the players. That’s the way it is, kind of like a four-day skins game, really.”
In the afternoon draw Thursday, Martin teamed up with Ann Swisshelm (third for the United States rink skipped by Erika Brown) in mixed doubles. Each team plays five rocks per end. One curler throws first and fifth stones and the other throws two through four. The Team North American duo defeated Niklas Edin (Swedish skip) and Monika Wagner (third for the German rink skipped by Andrea Schopp) of Team World 6-4 for six points.
“No lead is safe in mixed doubles. It always seems to come down to the last rock, too, and that’s why it’s exciting,” said Martin, who made a bing-bang shot at the end to seal the deal. “One thing you do need with mixed doubles is good ice conditions. It would be a very tough game on bad ice because there is not a lot of sweeping but on good ice like this, you can put the rocks where you need to.”
Another crowd pleaser was the robust display of support by the curlers for their teammates with enthusiastic cheerleading from the players’ benches.
“It’s a great atmosphere,” said MacDonald, a St. Albert resident who celebrated a Brier and world championship in 2010 curling with Koe, second Carter Rycroft and lead Nolan Thiessen. “You really do feel a little bit of more pressure than normal because you’re playing for so many other people. It’s definitely a unique feeling and it’s something you don’t get to experience a lot in curling.”
Ironically, the Edmonton-based powerhouse Martin and Koe rinks that will battle it out at provincials next month in High River are now brothers in arms on the same side.
“It’s so cool and the reason why is we never get to do it. These are guys that we’re always competing against and we’re trying to beat week in and week out, so to be on their team for once is so nice because they’re such a good team,” Kennedy said. “It’s pretty incredible camaraderie. As the week goes on and the intensity builds up, the camaraderie gets even strong, which makes it even that much more special.”
During the men’s team games in the Thursday night draw, Martin defeated Scottish skip David Murdoch’s all-star line-up 6-4 and Koe lost 7-2 to Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud.
Clutch shots by Martin and third John Morris decided the outcome against the 2009 world champion.
“It was a good win for the boys,” said Kennedy, a southpaw second who shot a team-low 73 per cent in the eight-end match.
Ulsrud, who lost the Olympic final to Martin in Vancouver, stole five points in the last four ends against Koe, including three in seven when Koe’s last-rock draw slipped through the rings.
“It would’ve been nice to help contribute to tour team’s lead tonight. We played well but they’re a good, strong team and if you don’t make your shots you’re not going to beat them,” said MacDonald, who curled at the 1999 Brier in Edmonton as the second on Ken Hunka’s rink. “We’ll regroup, figure out what we did wrong and then we’ll come back [Friday] and see if we can help our guys out.”
Prior to the evening draw, the Martin foursome of Morris, Kennedy and lead Ben Hebert (three-time Alberta champions, two-time Brier winners and 2008 world champions) were presented with an Olympic championship banner embroidered with their names to hang in their home club at the Saville Sports Centre.
They were also stunned to receive specially designed rings from Bill Comrie to commemorate their Olympic gold medal and unprecedented 11-0 record.
“That was really something special. It’s a pretty amazing thing Bill did for us and we couldn’t thank him enough. We’re very appreciative of everything he did. It’s so awesome,” Kennedy said.
