All eyes of curling enthusiasts in Saskatchewan were on North Battleford this weekend as the Affinity Credit Union Senior Men's and Women's Curling Championship was decided at Northland Power Curling Centre.
Five days of playdowns involving 16 teams from around Saskatchewan wrapped up Sunday with the provincial finals on the men's and women's side.
First up in the morning was the matchup between the Brad Heidt team from Kerrobert and the Randy Gilewich team from Regina. Both teams finished 5-2 during round robin play but Heidt's team had to earn their way into the final with a semifinal win over the Darrell McKee team from Saskatoon 4-3 on Saturday.
In the final, Heidt's team scored two in the sixth end to take a 4-3 lead over Gilewich. Gilewich tied it in the seventh, but Heidt had the last rock. In his last shot in the eighth and final end, Heidt took out Gilewich's rock to score one, and won the provincial title 5-4.
"Oh, it's a great feeling," said Heidt. "We're kind of on the down end of the old curling career so any time a guy can win a provincial championship, it's just freakin' an awesome feeling."
The team includes third Mark Lamb, second Glenn Heidt and lead Dan Ormsby.
For Heidt himself, this is his second provincial seniors title and goes along with the two provincial men's titles that earned him trips to the Brier. It's that experience that helped Heidt with making that last shot.
"Over the years a guy's played in it enough that you know how to react and you just try and compose yourself and know what you shouldn't do, and just come out and try and throw it as good as you can to make the shot."
The women's side was especially competitive. The rink of Cathy Inglis from Yorkton needed to win a 5-3 tiebreaker over the rink of Lorraine Arguin from Moose Jaw to advance to the semi-finals, but could not overcome an early lead by the Sherry Anderson rink from Saskatoon on Sunday.
With a 6-4 lead, but with two Inglis rocks in the house in the final end, Anderson only needed to take out one rock in her last shot to preserve a 6-5 win to advance to the finals against the strong Joan McCusker rink from Regina.
In the finals Sunday afternoon, McCusker took a 2-0 advantage after the first end. They extended the lead to 4-0 before Anderson's team scored in the fourth end to cut it to 4-1.
They cut it to 4-2 through five and then Anderson had a big sixth end, scoring four to take a 6-4 lead.
In the seventh, Team McCusker drew for one to make it 6-5, setting up the critical eighth end.
With her last shot, and with McCusker on the verge of stealing two to win the title, Anderson needed to knock out two McCusker stones in order to win.
Her final shot hit a yellow McCusker rock which then ricocheted off a second yellow McCusker rock. Both stones then went out of play to win Anderson's team the title by an 8-5 final score.
While it may have looked lucky, that double-takeout went according to plan, Anderson said. They had an open shot at making that takeout.
"You've still got to make the shot," Anderson said. " You've got to throw it good to have a chance of making it."
In addition to Anderson, the winning team consists of third Patty Hersikorn, second Brenda Goertzen and lead Anita Silvernagle.
Anderson felt her team got better as the playdowns went on. They had struggles with some of the rocks at times, Anderson said, but were able to get back on track during the finals.
"I felt we played quite well. I thought the girls got better in how we threw them all week," said Anderson.
For both the winning teams, more curling is on the way. Both men's and women's teams move on to play in Digby, Nova Scotia, representing Saskatchewan in the national seniors finals later in March.
In addition to receiving their championship trophies, the teams also received their Team Saskatchewan jackets as provincial representatives at the nationals.
