Nicholls is giving no quarter

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This article was published 11/01/2009 (6340 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PETER NICHOLLS has won a Manitoba men’s curling championship before — only problem is, that was almost 15 years ago when he was part of Dave Smith’s team in 1994.

Since then, the lanky skip out of the Deer Lodge Curling Club has been shut out from the Brier, although he almost beat former world champion Jeff Stoughton in the final of the Safeway Championship a couple of years ago.

Nicholls, with long-time fourth Dean Dunstone, lead Wayne Sigurdson and new second James Kirkness joining him this year, said Saturday he doesn’t mind that the likes of Stoughton, Kerry Burtnyk and Mike McEwen get most of the attention.

"It’s a little bit to our advantage because we fly below the radar and everyone looks at them so it doesn’t hurt us that no one expects us to do well," Nicholls said before beating Mark Franklin 8-3 at Fort Rouge to win the A side in his zone.

He’ll have at least one chance today — maybe two if he was able to beat William Kuran in a B-side semifinal late Saturday night — to win the zone and claim his berth into the Safeway Championship provincial men’s bonspiel next month in Selkirk.

Other A-side winners Saturday in the seven Winnipeg zones — with a berth in the provincials in Selkirk on the line today — include Reid Carruthers, David Bohn, Bob Sigurdson, Brian Pallister, Craig Strand and Don Nelson. Among the top seeds eliminated Saturday was former Canadian champ Vic Peters, while one-time Manitoba champion Randy Dutiaume and last year’s provincial finalist David Bohn suffered their first losses. Nicholls, the vice-principal at Kildonan East Collegiate, throws third stones and calls the shots while Dunstone is the clutch shooter on a team that has been very solid for years but hasn’t won the province.

"We’ve made it to the provincials every year and the final eight almost every year so we’re pretty consistent," he said.

"And now this year we have James Kirkness — he’s been to the Brier with (Dale) Duguid in ’98 and he’s skipped competitively, so he brings lots of experience and he knows how to win and he knows it takes a team to win."

Nicholls said the lack of notoriety and winning Manitoba doesn’t bother him as much now as it might if he was 25 because, "I think the curlers know that we can play… We like that maybe we’re kind of the underdogs and maybe we play that a little bit too."

He admires teams like Stoughton and Burtnyk because, by practising and playing so much they’re sacrificing time with their families. If his squad did the same, "I have no doubt that we could compete with anyone on the World Curling Tour, the upper echelons.

"The problem is that they throw every day and they play all the time, so they’re going to be more consistent. Can we beat them in a given Safeway Championship weekend? Absolutely, I think we’re good enough to do that."

chris.cariou@freepress.mb.ca