Nedohin comes up empty

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/02/2012 (5163 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RED DEER, Alta. — The Nedohin family has authored some great curling moments in Wild Rose Country. This week does not appear to be one of those times.

Alberta skip Heather Nedohin — wife of Edmonton’s three-time world men’s curling champion David Nedohin — had all the advantages inherent with being the home province at the 2012 Scotties Tournament of Hearts. Huge crowds this week at the Enmax Centrium — this event is on track to become one of the three best-attended Canadian women’s curling championships in history — have been begging for something to cheer about from the local side.

They’ve been often disappointed — and never more so than Wednesday afternoon as Nedohin gave up steals in the first, second and third ends en route to a costly 6-5 loss to Quebec’s Marie-France Larouche.

The sloppy loss came in a huge game for Alberta. Instead of improving to 6-3 and laying claim to a share of second place heading into today’s final day of the round robin, the Albertans instead fell to 5-4 and will now need to win their final round-robin games today and get some help from the teams in front of them if they’re going to advance to the weekend playoff round.

All of which was not what was being expected of Alberta here this week — not by the fans or the organizers who were hoping an Alberta playoff run would even further boost ticket sales.

“It will come around…,” Nedohin said. “I’m going to keep repeating this — the girls in front of me are playing well. And you know what? We’re going to get a break when we need to. We need some W’s and we’re going to work hard tomorrow for those.”

— — —

It’s looking a lot like 2011 all over again here this week for Team Canada’s Amber Holland — for better and worse.

And Holland can only hope that trend continues.

Just as she did in 2011, Holland got off to a blistering hot start at the Scotties this week. In Charlottetown, it was an 8-0 start. Here it was a 5-1 start.

And then Holland hit a rough patch. In Charlottetown, she lost two of her last three games. Here, it was a two-game losing streak that started with an 8-5 loss to Quebec Tuesday night and then continued Wednesday morning with a 7-6 loss to an anemic Nova Scotia foursome.

The good news for Holland is that if the pattern from last year continues this week, she will be a very happy skip come Sunday. Holland finished strong in Charlottetown to win her first Canadian title and again showed signs of renewed life Wednesday afternoon, crushing P.E.I.’s Kim Dolan 10-4 to improve to 6-3 and claim a share of second place.

“This is the end of our four (games) in a row,” Holland said after the P.E.I. win, “so it will be nice to have a night and just relax and put our feet up. My feet are sore.”

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Holland finishes today with games this morning against N.W.T.’s Kerry Galusha and then tonight in a long-awaited head-to-head matchup with provincial rival Michelle Englot of Saskatchewan.

Holland and Englot have not faced each other since 2009 in a competitive game of any kind and the last time two Saskatchewan teams met in the Scotties was way back in 1998.

“It’s going to be interesting. It’s going to be good. It’s going to be fun,” said Holland. “We haven’t played Michelle yet this year, so this will be the first time. And what a great time to step on the ice against her — at the Scotties.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca