Big upset in the world of sports today!
At Assiniboia, the Scott Manners rink outlasted the Bruce Korte foursome to win the Saskatchewan Men’s Curling Championship with a 6-5 exta end victory. Curling out of Battlefords, Manners and his rink of Tyler Lang, Ryan Deis and Mike Armstrong were ranked 12th out of 16 teams when the competition began on Wednesday. But on Sunday in the championship final they would not be denied.
I actually saw some of this game this afternoon on Sasktel Max when I was over doing laundry at my dad’s. Outside of one unbelievably obnoxious commentator who wouldn’t keep his yap shut and kept nattering on about all sorts of bullshit it was an okay broadcast. But realistically, the quality of the curling was not that good. In the ninth end, Manners rolled out on a wide-open hit at the back of the 12 foot that, had he stuck around, would’ve scored him a deuce and notched the game at 5-5. Instead, he was forced to steal in ten to send the game to an extra end, then won it with another steal in 11 when Korte failed to hit and stick with his last rock.
The Brier goes March 3-11 in Saskatoon. Saskatchewan’s last title came in 1980 courtesy of the Rick Folk rink. With the high calibre competition that the event should attract, it would take a massive miracle on par with Dwain Lingenfelter returning to provincial politics to assume the leadership of the Liberal Party and leading them to victory in the 2015 election for Saskatchewan to end its 32-year title drought.
Oh yeah, and in other sports news the New York Giants scored a last-minute TD on a six-yard scamper by Ahmad Bradshaw to beat the New England Patriots 21-17 and claim their second Superbowl title in four years. You can read about it here.
