Middaugh roars into Oly trials

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This article was published 16/11/2009 (5997 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PRINCE GEORGE, B.C. — With a spot in the Olympic curling trials at stake, Wayne Middaugh was awfully perfect.

Bob Ursel, on the other hand, was perfectly awful.

From start to finish, Middaugh was homed in on claiming the last of four qualifying berths at the Road to the Roar Olympic curling pre-trials, and accomplished that mission Saturday night as Ursel’s game crumbled in a 7-4 decision.

Middaugh, already a four-time qualifier for the Olympic trials when he stepped onto the ice this week at CN Centre, was never threatened in Saturday’s C-final as he became the fourth Road to the Roar men’s qualifier.

The 42-year-old Toronto skip will join Jeff Stoughton, Pat Simmons, and Jason Gunnlaugson and pre-qualifiers Kevin Martin, Kevin Koe, Randy Ferbey and Glenn Howard at the Roar of the Rings Olympic trials, Dec. 6-13 in Edmonton.

Gunnlaugson’s rink, based in Beausejour, booked its ticket to Edmonton with an 8-7 extra-end victory over Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen Saturday afternoon.

The 25-year-old Gunnlaugson, who entered the event ranked last out of the 12 teams competing on the men’s side, needed to erase a McEwen stone to clinch the C-event qualifier victory but was slightly inside and wound up spilling a cluster of rocks.

The shot might not have gone according to plan, but it got the job done.

“I tried to give everybody a heart attack on the last, but the big brushers saved me,” said Gunnlaugson, who’s ranked 10th on the World Curling Tour money list with $21,150.

“It’s really going to be tough in Edmonton, but there’s going to be less pressure on us and more pressure on everybody else.”

Middaugh and his team of third Jon Mead, second John Epping, and lead Scott Bailey had just 15 games together this season to prepare for the Road to the Roar. Ranked second going into the 12-team triple-knockout tournament, Middaugh had a first-round bye and lost his first game to Simmons.

He then reeled off wins over Greg McAulay of Richmond and Ursel, but couldn’t beat Simmons in the B-semifinal, forcing a sudden-death playoff Saturday morning against Jean-Michel Menard, which Middaugh won 8-7 in an extra end.

“We got it rolling at the right time and now hopefully we can keep peaking towards Edmonton,” Middaugh said. Ursel’s crew couldn’t buy a break through eight ends and he had nobody to blame but himself. Throwing third, the 44-year-old Kelowna RCMP officer made only 61 per cent of his intended shots, while Jon Mead, Middaugh’s third, shot at a 90 per cent success rate, also the Middaugh team average.

There was only so much Jim Cotter, throwing skip rocks, could do to bail out Ursel.

“I think I single-handedly lost that for the boys today. I feel like a piece of crap. That’s the worst I’ve curled since I can remember,” Ursel said.

“I couldn’t find draw weight; it was just a big struggle for me. The ice seemed a little faster for me today than I thought it was. The ice was different for sure for us. It certainly didn’t have as much swing as it had in the past. I just couldn’t pick up on it.”

Through seven ends, Middaugh didn’t miss a shot, scoring two in the first, third and seventh ends to lead 6-2. His only mistake was his failure to pick out an Ursel rock bunched up against two of Middaugh’s in the ninth, which allowed Cotter to steal one.

That gave Ursel a shot at gaining two in the 10th with last-shot advantage. But Ursel second Kevin Folk picked on his second shot and came up short trying to draw, and Ursel missed with both his shots. The first sailed through the house and second rubbed a guard, leaving Cotter very limited choices and a virtually impossible situation.

Middaugh drew into the rings to sit two, and when Cotter was unable to make the triple takeout, the handshakes were on.

— The Canadian Press, Canwest News Service