Stoughton gets 2nd shot at Olympics

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/11/2009 (6035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

AT least Jeff Stoughton has earned his ticket back to the scene of the crime.

Well, sort of.

The scene of the original crime was Halifax. The place: The Metro Centre.

The date: Dec. 11, 2005.

If you look real close, you can probably still make out the chalk outline of Stoughton’s prone body. Mean­while, the guy who pulled the trigger, a relative unknown named Brad Gushue — like that punk had a chance, right? — ran off with all the loot.

Gushue got the Maple Leaf. He got the Olympics. He got the gold in Turin. He got paid.

All Stoughton got was a nagging memory of an overswept rock and the knowledge, when his head hit the pillow at night, that it all could have turned out so differently. He only needed a fraction of an inch. One more half-rotation of a granite rock.

My kingdom for a pebble made of ice.

But with a workmanlike 8-7 extra­end victory over Saskatchewan’s Pat Simmons in Prince George, B.C.

Thursday, Stoughton punched his ticket for a coveted berth in the men’s Olympic Trials in Edmonton beginning Dec. 6. Stoughton’s foursome of Kevin Park (third), Rob Fowler (second) and longtime lead Steve Gould will join a who’s-who list of men’s teams already headed to Edmonton, including Glen Howard, Kevin Martin, Randy Ferbey and Kevin Koe.

Another Manitoba squad led by Mike McEwen was playing Friday night — also against Simmons — for the second of four spots still available out of Prince George, although results were not available at press time. Two other Bison squads, veteran Kerry Burtnyk and youngster Jason Gunnlaugson, were to meet in Friday night’s C-side semifinal. In a note of irony, Gushue’s squad was eliminated from the Trials Friday. Certainly a reversal of for­tunes from Halifax four years ago.

"It’s been one of those things where it was a tough loss," acknowledged Stoughton, now 46, looking back on just how close he came to his last Olympic opportunity. "Not too many people get to experience that. We’d love to get back there but we’d never want to go through that experience again. If we are fortunate enough to get into those playoffs (in Edmonton) we will win those last two games. I mean, to experience it once without winning is very disappointing so we’d hate to do it again. So we’ll be grinding like crazy."

Just goes to show that a guy with so many Purple Hearts can get it broken every once in a while, too.

But enough of history. The two-time Canadian champion flew through the field at Prince George unscathed, look­ing every bit the Stoughton with seven provincial championships and one world title on his mantle.

"It’s just one step closer to what we’ve been playing for these last couple of years," he said. "It doesn’t seem like much, only three wins, but it means everything to us to get to Edmonton."

"It’s one step closer to your dream.

"That’s what we’ve said all along, ‘There’s no Edmonton without Prince George,’ " Stoughton added. "So we really haven’t been looking ahead other than a few little conversations.

But now that it’s done our focus will be all on Edmonton. It’s sort of a huge relief and a lot of excitement. It’s already sinking in, the huge challenge ahead of us, so the excitement has sort of worn off already in one day."

Finest curlers

Although the lineup in Ed­monton already boasts some of the finest curlers of their generation, Stoughton was quick to point out that the field in 2005 wasn’t exactly a bunch of knee-sliders, either. "There was Martin, Howard, Morris and Ferbey… all those guys were there. It’s more excitement being part of that elite eight."

So everybody knows the drill.

Eight teams enter, one team leaves. And with these guys, what happens prior to those fateful few days in Edmonton — one day ago, four years ago — doesn’t mean a thing.

"It’s all under the bridge," Stoughton said. "We’re all zero wins, zero losses type of thing.

And it’s just going to be who’s at their best that week. Hopefully, we can be like that again. It’s putting it all together at the right time."

Stakes

At first, Stoughton conceded that the stakes have tipped a little north this time around, what with the 2010 Olympics being played on home ice in Vancouver. "That’s a bit more special," he noted.

Hmmm. Isn’t that "a bit of an understatement?"

Stoughton laughed out loud and came clean.

"It’s once in a lifetime," he ad­mitted. "It’s something the whole team… I’d don’t know what we’d do with ourselves if we won the thing. It would be such a great feeling."

Just a hunch, but we’re guess­ing only a man who’s been to the Olympic precipice and lost would know exactly what that meant.

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca