ARNOLD ASHAM has seen his son Nathan deliver under pressure so many times before that he had all the faith in the world it would happen again.
And even though it required a nail-biting measure with everything hanging in the balance, Asham's burly boy came through with his final shot of the game to give the Wildewood rink a berth in next month's Safeway Championship and the 120th MCA Bonspiel's Grand Aggregate trophy to boot.
Skip Arnold Asham gets a playful chokehold from son and rink-mate Nathan at the MCA Bonspiel Wednesday, after Nathan refused to choke on the ice, coming through on the final shot of the game to win the final. The nail-biting victory gave the Asham rink the bonspiel trophy, plus a berth into next month's provincial Safeway Championship
Nathan -- throwing skip's rocks while his dad called the shots in Wednesday's Safeway-Lucerne semifinal as part of a juggling act the father and son have performed all week -- drew for a piece of the four-foot with his final shot to beat the Heather's Ken Ringaert 6-5 and win a berth to the provincial men's championship in Brandon, Feb. 13-17.
"I saw it in hockey, I saw it in baseball, we won the nationals back when he was 13 years old in baseball," a beaming Arnold said as Nathan listened in at the Grain Exchange. "He was MVP in the final, he was MVP in the semifinal, MVP in the last game of the round robin... he gets very excited out here and he gets upset with me.
"But I know when it comes time to throw that last rock, he's going to be close. That's the sign of a skip when you can perform under pressure like that. Some guys just can't do it and some guys can. I'm not nearly as good at it as him and that's why we're in the (Safeway Championship) on his side and we lost this morning on my side."
Other Brandon berth winners Wednesday were Free Press event finalists Murray Woodward of Ste. Anne and David Bohn of Assiniboine Memorial, the Granite's Bob Sigurdson -- the other Safeway-Lucerne finalist -- and Brandon's Willie Lyburn, who beat Ringaert 4-3 in a special berth playoff to join his brother Allan in their hometown next month.
Asham entered the day as the lone remaining unbeaten team in the world's largest bonspiel, which started last Thursday with 400 rinks. But he got shellacked 10-1 by Woodward in the morning Free Press semifinal and was jolted back to Earth.
Nathan Asham came through with flying colours when it counted most Wednesday, drawing to the four-foot with his final stone in a pressure situation.
On Wednesday afternoon, Arnold, Nathan, second Shawn McCutcheon and lead James Fulcher found themselves tied at 5-5 with the hammer coming home when Nathan came through with his heroics. McCutcheon had slammed his broom to the ice, apparently thinking Ringaert's rock was closer to the button. But the measure proved it wasn't.
"We got a good split on it but the line was not cutting there so we had to be almost perfect tee-line to score," Nathan said. "I was little worried when (the rock) stopped because some brooms went up like they were going to bang but it ended up being the counter.
"Once I got down there to have a look at it, I thought it was a good stone. We were pretty happy about it. The most pressure is we've played so hard for a week to get here. It'd be real tough to go down and lose three on the final day and not make it."
Arnold said he's been to 10 or 12 provincial men's championships and the Brandon berth is more important than the Grand Aggregate, awarded to the team with the most victories.
Asham won his final game Wednesday night, beating Sigurdson 5-1 to finish 15-1.
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