Stoughton will give Nichols test run

Former Gushue third would be prize catch

By: Paul Wiecek Posted: 1:00 AM CDT Thursday, Mar. 22, 2012

THE list of potential replacements for the vacant lead position on the Jeff Stoughton foursome has expanded to include a former Olympic gold medallist.

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THE list of potential replacements for the vacant lead position on the Jeff Stoughton foursome has expanded to include a former Olympic gold medallist.

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This article was published 22/03/2012 (5174 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE list of potential replacements for the vacant lead position on the Jeff Stoughton foursome has expanded to include a former Olympic gold medallist.

Sort of.

Newfoundland’s Mark Nichols — who won gold in Torino in 2006 as third for Brad Gushue — will play lead for Stoughton at next month’s prestigious Players Championship in Summerside, P.E.I. in what Stoughton described Wednesday night as a one-off — at least for now.

“We thought it’d be fun to play with the guy,” said Stoughton, “so we called him up and he said, ‘Let me see if I can get the time off work.’ And he did. So it’s great…

“It’s solving our problem for that weekend. And yeah, it’d be awesome if he could play for us (next winter). But that’s not even on the radar or in talks right now. It just sort of worked out that the need came up and we gave him a call.”

Stoughton has been without a permanent lead ever since he parted ways earlier this month with longtime teammate Steve Gould. And Nichols has been without a team ever since he announced at this time last year that he was stepping away from the game — at least temporarily — to focus more on his personal life and career.

At his peak in the winter of 2005-06, Nichols was widely considered the premier third in the entire sport and it would be a coup for Stoughton if he could somehow convince a player of that calibre to curl as a front-end player for him.

But Stoughton doesn’t sound like he’s particularly optimistic that will happen.

“We thought we’d just play with some other guy and see how it works out. It was just one of those off-the-cuff things and it worked out great,” Stoughton explained.

“I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t want him to play with us, but obviously he doesn’t live in our fair city.”

Nichols couldn’t be reached for comment last night, but the fact he lives in Newfoundland doesn’t necessarily need to be a deal-breaker.

During the last Olympic cycle, for instance, current Stoughton third Jon Mead of Winnipeg played on an Ontario-based team skipped by Wayne Middaugh that was focussed strictly on qualifying for the Olympic Trials and did not compete as a unit in the provincial playdowns.

Meanwhile, Stoughton also retains a very viable local option in 2003 Manitoba junior champion Tyler Forrest, who Stoughton announced last week will audition at lead when his team plays at the end of the month at a bonspiel in Victoria.

“We’ve thrown rocks a couple times with Tyler already and it’s going great,” said Stoughton. “We’ll see how it runs in Victoria and keep our eyes and ears open for any other options that might come up. But our options are pretty limited at this point.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca