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 Alberta skip Keven Koe, right, celebrates with his rink mates after they defeated Ontario's Glenn Howard to win the 81st Brier Sunday. (Michael Burns, QMI Agency) |
HALIFAX — The celebration was over, the trophy presented, the medal hung around their necks.
The pictures were taken and Kevin Koe and his 2010 Brier champions headed to the other end of the rink.
Their families, with their hair painted Alberta blue and yellow, waited behind the boards at the other end, including Blake MacDonald’s bare-chested son Spencer, who had his back painted with a giant exclamation mark.
That said it right there.
If ever there was a Brier win deserving of an exclamation mark,this was it.
“If you’re going to win the Brier, it might as well be in an extra end with a draw to the button,” said lead Nolan Thiessen.
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“It was nerve-wracking. But it can’t get any better than this. It just can’t!”
Not only was it a draw to the button to win on the 11th end, it was Alberta’s third consecutive Brier win as Koe, MacDonald, Carter Rycroft and Thiessen took the place of Olympic gold medal winner Kevin Martin, who went 13-0 back-to-back to win the last two Briers after Randy Ferbey had won four earlier in the decade.
“It’s like we said in Olds when we won the provincials:when you come out of Alberta, you’re expected to win it,” said Thiessen. “We didn’t let anybody down.”
They especially didn’t let themselves down.
“It might be our only chance,” he added. “Who knows? The Olympic champion is going to be back next year and the Brier champion and ... it’s such a tough province to get out of, by far the toughest province in Canada to get out of to get to the Brier.”
It was Alberta’s 25th Brier title and first by a skip born and raised in the Northwest Territories. And while it was a game with several twists and turns, in the end it will be remembered for one shot.
“We’d never beat them before. We knew we’d never beat them before. It was our first Brier. And we had to put one on the button in an extra end to win it,” raved Koe.
“It’s awesome for this team. It took us a long time to get to the Brier and then to win the first one and to beat Glenn Howard and one of the greatest teams in curling for the first time and to do it in extra ends with a draw to the button ...
“It was a great team effort. People don’t realize how much pressure was on the sweepers there.
“I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t heavy and give them a chance — and they swept it beautifully.
“A draw to the button to win the Brier is pretty special. We’re better known as bangers, and for me to come through to hit the button ... that’s pretty memorable.
“I liked my chances, you know? I had good draw eight all week and I just wanted to throw to that shot.”
Rycroft, who won an Olympic silver medal curling with Martin but failed to win two Brier attempts with The Old Bear, was a poster boy for the thrill of victory as he bounced around the house like he was a balloon with the air escaping.
“It was my third Brier, but it was such a long road,” he said.
“I was the kid on those teams with Kevin. I was 10 years younger than the other guys. We built this together.”
MacDonald, who four years ago in Drayton Valley was throwing last rocks and missed a last-rock draw to the eight foot and then missed another draw to the eight foot in the extra end to send Martin to the Brier, was maybe the most satisified of all.
The last time a team not skipped by Martin or Ferbey represented the province at the Brier was 1999, when MacDonald was playing second for Ken Hunka.
“I’m so thrilled, I don’t even know what it feels like,” he said.
“Until that rock came to a stop ... this is my dream of a lifetime. And to be going to the Worlds in Cortina, Italy and finally being able to wear the red Maple Leaf on my back ...
“It brings tears to my eyes,” he said.
He didn’t have to say it.
It brought tears to his eyes just thinking it.
terry.jones@sunmedia.ca