Koe team gets chance at dream season

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/04/2010 (5966 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kevin KOE is one victory away from completing a dream season, adding an international title to his Alberta and Brier crowns.

The Edmonton Saville Centre skip turned the tables on Norway’s Torger Nergard in a lopsided 11-5 eight-end win in the Page playoffs 1-2 game Friday night to advance straight through to Sunday’s final of the 2010 Capital One World Men’s Curling Championship in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

A Koe victory there would mean Brier and world titles in his very first appearances in the prestigious events. The last Canadian to pull off that feat was Manitoba’s Orest Meleschuk back in 1972.

"Hopefully we’re the next one," Koe said when told of the possible achievement. "It would be a dream season. Just winning the Brier was unbelievable enough, and now we’re one win away from really capping it off."

The Meleschuk win in 1972 is now remembered as the LaBonte Curse. Playing in the final, American skip Bob LaBonte fell during a premature celebration, kicked a rock that eventually was counted as part of a deuce in the 10th to force an extra end. Meleschuk then won it in the 11th and Canada did not claim another world title until 1980, hence the LaBonte Curse.

On Friday, Nergard, who finished atop the round-robin standings at 10-1, looked cursed from the very beginning as Koe, third Blake MacDonald, second Carter Rycroft and lead Nolan Thiessen put the pressure on from the outset.

Norway was forced to take one in the first end before Koe, who finished second to Norway at 9-2 in the round robin, bopped him with a wonderful three in the second. Looking like an open draw for a deuce, the Canadian skip opted instead to play a tricky little hit that gave him the 3-1 lead.

"He had to draw the button just to score his point. After that, the three-ender was a big end to get up, but the key one was our steal of two. He barely had a shot coming out of that end," said Koe, who wasted little time going for the three in the second as opposed to settling for two.

Koe then stole two in the third for a 5-1 advantage and was lying five after his final stone of the fourth end after an amazing triple takeout. Nergard was forced to draw for one with his last rock to make it 5-2, but was then hammered for a five in the fifth on a Koe hit to make it 10-2 at the break.

It was a confident Koe who took to the ice Friday after losing 9-8 to Nergard the previous night in the final round-robin draw that gave Norway the hammer. Nergard now awaits the winner of this afternoon’s Page 3-4 game between American Pete Fenson and Scotland’s Warwick Smith. The victor faces Nergard in the semifinal tonight.

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"We adjusted this second game and we made sure we didn’t give him as many opportunities and it worked out," MacDonald said of Nergard.

— Canwest News Service