From a humble start to world domination

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/04/2011 (5489 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

REGINA — It began the way only world championships in curling begin — in obscurity on a cold winter morning in a cold rural rink against an unknown opponent.

Win number one for Jeff Stoughton came on the 8:30 a.m. draw on Sheet A of the Sun Gro Centre in Beasuejour on Feb. 9 as Stoughton began his remarkable run to the world curling title he won here last night where every world title run in curling begins — at the very bottom and in an empty rink.

History will forever record that the first bookend of Stoughton’s 2011 world men’s curling championship came that crisp early morning in an 8-3 victory over Wawanesa’s Perry Fisher — the 31st seed in the 32-team field that competed in Beausejour for the 2011 Manitoba men’s curling championship.

Fisher battled Stoughton to a 2-2 draw through four ends, before giving way. He would be eliminated with a second straight loss later that same day.

But Stoughton would go on. And on. And on.

Win number seven came four days later, a 5-4 victory over Mike McEwen in the provincial final. It would be three more weeks before Stoughton would step on the ice again, but the result was the same — a 10-4 win over BC’s Jim Cotter on the opening draw of the Brier in London, Ont.

 

It would take six more games before Stoughton would suffer the first defeat of his world title run — a 7-4 loss to Ontario’s Glenn Howard on Draw 11 of the Brier.

And that loss would be, for the record, the only game Stoughton was actually beaten in a remarkable 33-game marathon that began in Beausejour against Fisher and ended here last night with the other bookend to a remarkable season — a 6-5 victory over Scotland’s Tommy Brewster in the final of the 2011 World Men’s Curling Championship.

There were two more losses along the way, to be sure. But Stoughton beat himself in both of those — giving away a round-robin game to Newfoundland’s Brad Gushue at the Brier with a self-admitted “bonehead” piece of strategy; and then allowing himself to get distracted in the tenth end of a 7-6 loss to Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud here on the final round-robin draw Thursday night.

But aside from that — aside from that bonafide loss to Howard and those two blips against Newfoundland and Norway — what we have all witnessed over the past nine weeks is as close to curling perfection as we may ever witness again.

The numbers speak for themselves — 7-0 to win the Manitoba title; 11-2 to win the Brier; and 12-1 to win the world. I’ll save you the math — 30-3.

When the numbers are that gawdy, there is the temptation to feel like perhaps it was easy. It was never that.

It wasn’t easy getting out of Manitoba — indeed, you can argue that the McEwen team still might be the best team Stoughton beat this year.

It wasn’t easy getting out of Canada — certainly not against a field that include the last two Olympic gold medallists in Gushue and Alberta’s Kevin Martin and a three-time world champion in Ontario’s Glenn Howard.

And it certainly wasn’t easy here — and especially not last night against a Scottish team that shot lights out for the first four ends and could have authored one of the event’s great upsets if Canada had faltered even slightly.

And you know what? It wasn’t easy against Fisher, either. “I remember that Fisher game,” Stoughton lead Steve Gould said here last night. “Those guys gave us a run early on.

“And you know what? We saw one of them here the other day. Talked to him during the US game. Really, they’re a bunch of great guys.”

And the guys that beat them? Nine weeks and 33 games later, they’re the greatest of all.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca