Roar of the Rings ‘Unbelievable… amazing’

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This article was published 13/12/2009 (6109 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

EDMONTON — There were tears of joy, tears of anguish and more hugs than a family reunion as Canada crowned a women’s champion at the Roar of the Rings.

Veteran Calgary skip Cheryl Bernard and her crew of Susan O’Connor, Carolyn Darbyshire and Cori Bartel edged Shannon Kleibrink’s team, also of Calgary, 7-6 in the women’s final at the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials Saturday night in front of 10,667 at Rexall Place — the largest crowd to ever watch a women’s game.

Team Bernard will now wear Canada’s colours at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in February.

“It feels amazing. It hasn’t sunk in. It’s been a long road,” said the 43-year-old Bernard. “I’m so proud of my team and how they came out in this game. They were cool and collected and they’ll represent Canada well.

“It’s just unbelievable at this point, It’s amazing. It’s overwhelming.”

In a superb game that served up some outstanding shot-making, particularly in the final five ends, Bernard needed to draw full eight foot on her last shot for the victory. And as Bernard’s final rock headed for the rings, both teams — and the huge crowd — waited breathlessly to see if it would stop or be heavy as her front end hardly put a broom to the shot.

“I was thinking, ‘Please stop!’ ” said O’Connor, Bernard’s third. “Please, please, please stop!’

“Oh God… our team has worked so hard and we’re truly a team and it’s so nice to win. Sometimes good people do win these things. It’s been five years. Pretty much five years ago we started forming this team.

“I don’t know what to say, I’m just so happy.”

Interestingly, Manitoba fans should take note — our province will have a rep at the Olympics in Vancouver as as second Carolyn Darbyshire was born in Arborg and played second for Merline Darbyshire’s provincial championship team from 1985.

Trials winners will receive $180,000 over a 30-month period from Sport Canada as A-carded athletes plus $50,000 from the profit from the event will go to the team to help defray Olympic-related costs for both the team and family members.

The win for Bernard is easily the most significant of her career. A four-time provincial champion, she has never won a Scotties or an international event. But they were the best team here all week, finishing with a 6-1 record in the round-robin to earn a berth into the final.

“We’ve lost in some finals and my team has stuck with me,” said Bernard. “We’ve won the big one finally and I think it’s worth all the pain we’ve gone through in the last three years.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca