On a remarkable run

Stoughton has been almost unstoppable since November

By: Paul Wiecek Posted: 1:00 AM CDT Monday, Apr. 4, 2011

REGINA -- The numbers just get more remarkable with each win.

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REGINA -- The numbers just get more remarkable with each win.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/04/2011 (5529 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

REGINA — The numbers just get more remarkable with each win.

Consider: On Feb. 9, Jeff Stoughton stepped on to the ice at the Sun Gro Centre in Beausejour for his first game of the 2011 Manitoba men’s curling championship. He won, spanking Wawanesa’s Perry Fisher 8-3.

Since that day, Stoughton has stepped onto a sheet of curling ice for a game 22 more times. He has won 20 of those games, including three times here on opening weekend at the 2011 World Men’s Curling Championship.

With a 7-4 victory over Germany’s Andy Kapp on Sunday, combined with wins over Switzerland and Denmark on Saturday, Stoughton’s Team Canada foursome is a perfect 3-0 and in first place at the Worlds heading into today — and have run their remarkable record to 21-2 since that opening game at the provincials.

It is an eye-popping streak — made even more so when you consider Stoughton also went 6-0 at a berth bonspiel in Portage last November to earn his provincials berth. Add those numbers to the tally and Stoughton is now 27-2 in a playdowns run that has carried him all the way from a berth spiel at the Portage Curling Club to first place atop the leader board at the Worlds.

And if that were not impressive enough, both Stoughton and third Jon Mead proclaimed after the win over Germany Sunday that the team can play still play better.

“We’re not only 3-0,” said Mead, “but there’s room for improvement.”

Stoughton said he liked, but didn’t love, what he saw out of his team against Germany. “It was good to get a good game under our belts,” said Stoughton, whose foursome shot 90 per cent in the win. “Our first two games were a little shaky. This game had a little more rhythm to it. We still weren’t super sharp, but we made all the clutch draws we had to make. Everyone just felt better out there and we’re looking forward to (today).”

Stoughton plays twice today, taking on an overmatched Korean team this morning before getting their toughest test so far against USA’s Pete Fenson, the 2006 Olympic bronze medallist, tonight.

The Stoughton team’s recent past, however, raises a legitimate question of whether Fenson — or anyone else in this 12-team Worlds field — can figure out a way to beat a team that has been almost unbeatable for two months.

Ontario’s Glenn Howard simply outshot Stoughton — something almost no one has done lately — in beating him 7-4 on Draw 11 of the Brier round-robin back on March 8. And Stoughton beat himself in his only other loss of the past two months, letting himself get talked into a ridiculous shot in the eighth end that ultimately cost him an 8-5 round-robin loss to Newfoundland’s Brad Gushue on Draw 15 on March 10.

But aside from those two blemishes, one of them entirely self-inflicted, Stoughton and the rest of his team — Mead, second Reid Carruthers and lead Steve Gould — have been as close to perfect as you’ll see in a fickle sport like curling.

Mead described a mindset on the Stoughton team right now that sounds a lot like ‘The Zone’ athletes in all sports describe when they get on a roll. “You forget what happened in the game before, you forget what else you got on your plate,” said Mead. “When things are going well, you just sort of get tunnel vision on the process.

“I haven’t really thought about the games we’ve won — and we’ve won against some amazing freaking teams too, right? I mean, it’s not like we’ve just got these tap-ins and guys are rolling over. We’ve played some really good teams.”

Stoughton played only once on Sunday, getting the evening off. Scotland and China were in second at 2-0 heading into the evening draw. The remaining nine teams in the field had all already recorded at least one loss.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca