Last rock for czar of the bizarre

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/12/2010 (5718 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

He won Russia, but he couldn’t win Springfield.

A season that began with high expectations and international headlines ended with a whimper and disappointment for Jason Gunnlaugson Sunday night as the 2010 Russian men’s curling champ was eliminated in the Manitoba zone playdowns.

A 10-5 loss to Ste. Anne’s Murray Woodward at the Springfield Curling Club eliminated Gunnlaugson and mates Justin Richter and Tyler Forrest, who were hoping to become the first curlers to win two national men’s curling titles in one season.

Instead, the troika is likely done for the season, Gunnlaugson says, leaving them to ponder what might have been in a season the likes of which no one in curling has ever seen before.

“It’s about time we started doing other stuff,” Gunnlaugson said Sunday night, “and spent a little less time throwing rocks at houses.”

Gunnlaugson, Richter and Forrest made headlines when they were hired by the Russians last spring to play this winter as the Russian national men’s team. After a roller-coaster fall that saw them win the “Russian Brier” but perform poorly on the cashspiel circuit, they were fired in November.

But things got interesting again when the Canadian Curling Association ruled a couple of weeks later that the three were still eligible to curl in the Manitoba playdowns despite their Russian title and could still, conceivably, challenge for a Canadian men’s championship at the Tim Hortons Brier, too.

But with Sunday night’s loss and a personal commitment for Richter at the same time as next month’s MCA Bonspiel — when the final berths into February’s provincial men’s curling championship will be determined — Gunnlaugson said he has all but closed the book on what has turned out to be both a memorable and entirely forgettable season.

It was the opposite story on Sunday for zone winners Vic Peters and Randy Dutiaume, who have the opportunity to redeem forgettable cashspiel seasons with a run in Beausejour at the provincial men’s championship, Feb. 9-13.

Peters, a three-time Manitoba men’s champion, went undefeated through his zone to capture his provincials berth, while the Thistle’s Dutiaume — the memorable blue-collar winner of the 2005 Manitoba men’s championship — needed a 6-3 win over Pembina’s Dave Johnson in the A-B final to win his zone.

Peters had no illusions about the task in front of his team in Beausejour, where cashspiel heavyweights Jeff Stoughton and Mike McEwen — who both had their provincials berths sewn up prior to this weekend — will be overwhelming favourites.

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“There’s six or eight teams like us that are probably a cut below those guys,” Peters said. “But if we can get through those first few days (at the provincials), you never know.

“It will be fun to give it a shot, that’s what I know.”

Garth Smith, a 2008 Manitoba men’s champion as lead for Kerry Burtnyk, will get his shot as skip of his own squad at the provincials after an undefeated run of his own through his zone. Smith has a squad with a rich curling pedigree, including 1996 world champion Ken Tresoor at third and former Manitoba junior champion Ross McFadyen at second.

Notables still without a provincials berth include former Stoughton second Rob Fowler, West Kildonan’s Brendan Taylor, the fifth seed in the city zones, and Petersfield’s Dave Boehmer.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca