Nedohin off the Mark
Last-rock misses give Dacey a shocking come-from-behind Brier victory
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
SASKATOON -- It was a countdown to a coronation.
It was there. It was over. It was 8-4 with three ends to go.
It was, excuse me Ernie Richardson, the only rink which had won four Briers but didn't win four in a row.
It was a choke. What else can you call it?
Randy Ferbey's four-in-a-row was in hand. In the minds of just about everybody in the building and a million and more watching on TV, the Alberta rink was off to the world championships to attempt to become the first team in history to win three in a row there. All they had to do was close. And they couldn't. They didn't.
"I'm having a hard time looking the guys in the eyes right now," said last-rock-throwing Dave Nedohin of gassing a game that was already won by missing shots in the eighth and 10th ends he'll have nightmares about for the rest of his life. "I missed a couple of shots in the eighth - shots I'm supposed to make. If I make my shots, we win the game. We win the Brier again. I take the last shots. It's up to me to figure things out. It's my job to make those shots. I'm taking this on my shoulders. The guys played great."
Traces of tears were in the eyes of Ferbey, Nedohin, Scott Pfeifer and Marcel Rocque as they were forced to stand there through a 25-minute closing ceremonies, thinking about what happened to them here.
'UTTER DISBELIEF'
"Utter disbelief," said Pfeifer. "The game was in the bag.
"I feel for Dave. He's the reason we won the last three Briers."
Ferbey said obviously they gave the game away.
"You can't help but be confident when you are four up with three ends to go.
"It came down to poor execution. It came down to sitting in the hack and making the shots. We stopped making them and they started making them.
"I'm sure Dave is going to blame himself; But it's nothing to be embarrassed about. He's made a lot of shots.
"The thing that gets you is that we've never lost a game like that before."
It's too bad that the focus is going to be on Ferbey's rink losing the game more than Nova Scotia's Mark Dacey rink winning it.
Nobody has ever won a Brier like that before. Nobody.
"That has to be the greatest comeback in curling history and against one of the greatest teams in history," said Rob Harris of ending the three-in-a-row reign of the Edmonton Avonair rink.
"This is awesome. I guess it's time for somebody new," added the second for Dacey's team, which came back to score three in the eighth and three more in the 10th to beat the Albertans 10-9.
The 19 points is the highest combined score for a final, eclipsing the mark of 18 set in three previous Briers since the playoff format began in 1980.
"We just beat the best team in the world. It's so amazing to be part of this," said Harris.
'I STAYED CALM'
"I stayed calm," said Dacey, who was a nervous Nellie in the early ends, but got it done with the adrenalin pumping in the end.
He drew for three with Nedohin sitting behind the house, covering his face after missing a clutch shot to set it up.
"My guys believed in me. I believed in them. To come from behind like that is so unbelievable. It looked like a real cakewalk for those guys. But if you make your last six shots in the last three ends, things can happen."
This won't go down in history as one team making shots, though. It was about the team on the very verge of being anointed as the greatest ever gagging on history.
Nedohin, the MVP winner of the last three Briers, was definitely the goat of this game, setting the entire comeback up when he missed on his first shot in the eighth.
"That's the one. If there's one we could have back it was Dave's first shot in the eight," said Ferbey.
This looked like the same game as all the other Ferbey finals.
Against Manitoba's Kerry Burtnyk at Ottawa in 2001, it was 3-3 at the fifth end break. Ferbey scored two in the sixth, eighth and ninth. Game over.
Two years ago at Calgary, John Morris thought he was going good in a 3-2 game when Ferbey hit him for four in the fifth. Game over.
Last year at Halifax, Nova Scotia led 4-3 after six ends and watched the Ferbey Four put up five points over the next three ends. Game over.
But not this time. Nedohin out-curled Dacey 84% to 75%. Ferbey out-curled third Bruce Lohnes 90% to 88%. Marcel Rocque out-curled lead Andrew Gibson 95% to 90%. Only Harris had an edge - 94% to 88% over second Pfeifer.
But statistics were for losers.
"All the way through this, we've felt we were kind of a team of destiny. But when you look back at the week, they were the team of destiny," said Rocque of Dacey, a Saskatoon native.
"They beat us the same way earlier in the week. We let them back in with a big end in that one, too," he said of the round robin.
"What can you say? This is sport. That's why you play the games."
It's a game they'll be playing over and over again for the rest of their lives.
