Johnson sets sights on another Canadian title
Fitness a key to team’s success, local skip says
Mark Johnson didn’t intend to make it an endurance test, but admitted “the old guys are feeling it a bit there” after playing 14 games in 12 days.
Johnson’s rink of Kurt Balderston, Rob Bucholz and Del Shaughnessy won the Tim Hortons Alberta senior men’s curling title last weekend at Calgary’s North Hill Community Curling Club.
“As you get older, these chances get fewer and fewer,” said Johnson.
His team, which is registered out of Grande Prairie (even though Johnson and Bucholz live in Edmonton), warmed up by playing six games in the Alberta men’s championship Feb. 5-9, then dominated the senior men’s competition by winning six of seven games in the roundrobin and crushing defending champion Wade White 8-2 in the final.
“We kind of feel like, for a senior team, we’re pretty fit, so we feel we have an advantage,” said Johnson, who will test his rink’s fitness again in the Canadian championship, an 11-game round robin marathon from March 22-29 at Yellowknife.
While Johnson, 55, won the world senior men’s in 2011, Balderston and Bucholz are both in their first season of senior eligibility (50-plus). The team only entered the men’s playdowns to get some extra games.
“Really, before the men’s provincials, we had played only about 17 games together as a team. That’s not many,” said Johnson.
“We played really well,” he said about the senior men’s event. “We had one hiccup, one game where we struggled as a team, maybe the worst game we’ve played this year as a team together. But we really played extremely well, especially the last three games. We really didn’t miss hardly anything in those games. I was really pleased with how everybody played. It made my life simple.”
Johnson won his last two round robin games, 10-3 and 11-5, before crushing White’s Crestwood Curling Club rink of Dean Ross, Dan Holowaychuk and George Parsons in the final in only seven ends.
“Because we’ve all played at a fairly high level, it seems like we know when to bear down and really focus and make some of the bigger shots,” said Johnson, whose rink was also assisted by playing in the men’s provincials at Lacombe.
“There’s no doubt the intensity, the level of curling you experience there really gets you to bear down and focus. It sure helped, although the ice here was significantly different than men’s provincials. It was definitely a lot straighter (in Calgary).”
In the senior women’s championship, Calgary’s Glenys Bakker barely got into the playoffs with a 4-3 round robin record. She escaped from the three-way tie for third place by defeating reigning world champion Cathy King’s new team from the Saville Centre 7-6 in an extra end in a tiebreaker, 2013 provincial champ Deb Santos of St. Albert 10-6 in the semifinal, and Calgary’s Terri Loblaw 6-5 in the final.
Makichuk, Leach win mixed doubles
Karli Makichuk of Lloydminster and Cory Leach of Lac La Biche won the Alberta mixed doubles championship last weekend at Camrose.
Twenty-five teams participated in the triple-knockout competition, including NAIT’s Matt Brown/Karynn Flory, who lost the final 6-4.
ACAC titles up for grabs this weekend
Brown and Flory will be back on their respective school rinks in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference championships this weekend at Lakeland College in Vermilion.
Brown won the men’s gold medal while Flory, last year’s Alberta junior women’s champ, took home the women’s silver medal in the 2013 Canadian Colleges Athletic Association championship at the Avonair Curling Club.
Brown’s rink dominated the two regional tournaments this season with a 9-1 record while Flory’s team finished in a four-way tie for second place at 6-4. Michael Simmons (9-1) skips the NAIT mixed rink.
MacEwan’s Jordan Steinke, who lost last year’s national final to Brown, has an 8-2 record this season while Krista Hilker, the 2013 CCAA bronze medallist, topped the women’s division at 8-2.
Meanwhile, Makichuk throws second rocks on the Lakeland women’s team, which finished 6-4 in the regional tournaments.
Of note:
The Saville Centre held a send-off party for Canadian junior women’s champion Kelsey Rocque and her University of Alberta rink of Keely Brown, Taylor McDonald and Claire Tully on Thursday. The world junior championship starts Wednesday at Flims, Switzerland. Eight men’s teams and six women’s rinks are playing in the provincial masters championships at the Jasper Place Curling Club. Round-robin play ends Saturday morning, with the finals scheduled for Sunday afternoon.