So far, so-so

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/03/2010 (5895 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HALIFAX — Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s early days here at the Brier or maybe, it’s as lead Steve Gould puts it, “he just keeps getting better.”

But Jeff Stoughton is as confident and relaxed stepping onto the ice against the best in this country as he is on a league night back in Winnipeg.

Despite some uneven play from his team and watching an opponent hang a four-spot on the board, Stoughton remained the picture of calm throughout the opening day of action at the Brier Saturday.

By day’s end he was 1-1 after an extra-end 8-7 win over B.C.’s Jeff Richard in Draw 1 and then an 8-5 loss to Brad Jacobs of Northern Ontario in the evening draw.

There was lots of sloppy play from Team Stoughton, enough to have Peyton Manning screaming at his offensive line or Randy Carlyle playing yo-yo with his goalies, but the skip kept a smile on his face and even had some fun with the unfortunate results.
 

“What you learn as the years go by is that it’s a long week and there’s no sense in smashing brooms and kicking rocks this early. We’ll save that for a playoff loss if it happens,” said Stoughton.

Lots of skips would have glued a look of death to their mugs, but not Stoughton, as he uncorked his patented spinarama shot with what turned out be his last rock in the loss to Jacobs. Northern Ontario scored four in the second, forcing Manitoba to scrap for the next six ends to stay in the game. Stoughton saw the writing on the wall with his first rock in the 10th and came out of the hack spinning. The crowd loved it and Stoughton said it was important to keep his group on an even keel.

“The four was just one of those ends where we needed to roll two more inches and we just messed up the line call. I said ‘whoa’ when we should have kept on going. If we get that shot it’s just a deuce,” said Stoughton. “But it was actually good. The guys loosened up and had some fun out there and we got back into it and gave ourselves a chance. We scratched our way back.”

On Saturday night, in the middle of a grinding game that saw his team trail almost throughout, Stoughton was playing to the crowd and drinking soda from a super-sized McDonald’s cup. If one didn’t know better, they’d have thought he was decidedly uninvolved. To know a little about Stoughton, however, is to understand that he’s ultra-competitive and puts winning above just about everything in life. He just doesn’t like to sweat while he does it.

“I think you see (some unexpected misses) across the board on the first day,” said Stoughton. “Everyone is getting comfortable with the ice and you see more misses than expected across the sheet. It’s a long week — we’ll get them tomorrow.”

The day was a long one for the Manitobans as they were on the ice for the morning’s opening ceremonies and then involved in two long games that basically ran back-to-back.

“You have to enjoy yourself. It’s a long week and you have to have fun. It was a long bloody day. We’ve been here almost 12 hours. We need to move on and get some rest and be back here fresh and ready in the morning,” said Stoughton.

Stoughton was forced to throw an open draw to the four-foot for the win in his first game after his team came up with a series of misses in the 10th end. Many skips might have been a little flustered.

Not the two-time Brier champ out of Charleswood and eight-time Manitoba title holder. He was more concerned with having to send alternate Randy Dutiuame out for a sack of burgers to replenish his troops. Experience. Confidence. Call it what you want, Stoughton has it.

Asked if playing such a tough game to start out with was a good thing, Stoughton laughed before stating he had little use for a nail-biter: “I was hoping to be done in six ends. Or the mandatory seven. It’s nice to get some nerves going even though you’d still like an open hit or something easy to win the game.”