Shooting from the lips

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/03/2009 (6419 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CALGARY — Desperate times call for desperate measures.

And with his Team Manitoba sleepwalking through their Brier this week, these are very certainly desperate times for Winnipeg’s Jeff Stoughton.

And so Stoughton did Wednesday what Stoughton always does best — he shot his mouth off.

It was, for a longtime observer of all things Stoughton, a vintage display, particularly coming as it did after an unusually quiet winter for Stoughton. Unless, that is, you were the unfortunate French CBC reporter who waded into the middle of it.

Here’s the scene: Stoughton emerged from the ice and into a media scrum Wednesday morning having barely beaten a genuinely awful Northern Ontario team. Coming off two losses on Tuesday and heading into a clash with Kevin Martin’s Alberta powerhouse — which Stoughton would also lose convincingly, 7-2 — the Manitoba skip was, understandably, concerned and frustrated with his team.

He had reason to be. With Wednesday night’s loss to Alberta, Stoughton enters today at 5-4 and mired in a four-way tie with New Brunswick, B.C. and Quebec for the fourth and final playoff spot.

And Stoughton won’t have an easy final day today, with games this morning against reigning Olympic gold medallist Brad Gushue and this afternoon against Saskatchewan.

So Stoughton already knew earlier Wednesday, even before he played Alberta, that his team had problems.

And that is where the local French CBC guy comes in. He had three things working against him at the particular moment: His English wasn’t great, his knowledge of curling was worse and he didn’t know Stoughton’s long history of shooting his mouth off as a motivation tool for himself and his team.

Here’s a transcript of what followed:

Poor CBC guy: What do you expect from tonight’s game (against Alberta)?. Will it be the toughest of the tournament?

Stoughton (Picture bubbles of sarcasm actually dripping from his chin): "We’re just going to keep it clean and boring and not put any rocks in play and hopefully be tied up coming home."

Poor CBC guy: When you play a good team like that, is it better to play them at the end (of the Brier)?

Stoughton (Picture a shark spotting blood in the water):"Are you saying they’re better than us."

Poor CBC guy: They’re former champs.

Stoughton (Spotting the swimmer’s shadow on the surface) "Oh, former champs. Like us."

And then it was time to move in for the kill.

"Honestly," Stoughton smiled. "they’re so good, we’ll be so lucky to just be in the game. If we’re even in the hunt at the end of the game, we’ll be happy."

I interjected at that point, something I never do, and told Stoughton to leave the guy alone and be nice.

Stoughton, just like people generally, ignored me.

"I think it’s almost an insult to any of the teams when you say, ‘Are you going to have a good chance to beat these guys?’ I don’t think any of these guys appreciate it when a reporter comes up to them and says to a guy like (NWT skip Jamie) Koe, ‘Oh, you guys had it in the bag, but a great team came back against you.’

"They are great teams. But I think it’s kind of a slap to ask these guys ‘What are your chances?’ or ‘What do you have to do to beat these guys?’"

I pointed out to Stoughton that he was starting to sound a bit like Manitoba skip Barb Spencer at last month’s Scotties, in which she ranted at me that she was every bit as good as defending champion Jennifer Jones — and then promptly set a new Manitoba futility record at 2-9.

Stoughton didn’t really answer that question.

Things trailed off after that and most of the media moved on. Except for me and the French CBC guy, who hung in and asked Stoughton if he could ask him two more questions.

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And with that, everything changed. Stoughton flicked his charm switch back on and very patiently stood in and did his best to give the guy an interesting and informative clip.

You auditioning for the parts of Jekyll and Hyde, I asked Stoughton afterward? "You see what’s going on out there," he smiled, "we’re not playing well enough out there to compete right now.

"I’m just trying to light a fire under our guys."

It didn’t work.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca