It was a long, tough, gruelling ride but Jeff Stoughton successfully reached the end of the championship trail on Sunday night at the Brandt Centre in Regina.The 47-year-old Stoughton completed his most illustrious-ever curling campaign by adding his second Ford Worlds title to a glittering list of accomplishments that includes three Brier wins and a record nine Manitoba titles.
“It doesn’t get any better,” said Stoughton, shortly after recording a 6-5 championship-final victory over Scotland’s Tom Brewster in the event closer. “At my age, with my long career, it’s pretty special to be able to do this. We’ve put in a lot of hard work and dedication to play this game. And this says a lot for our longevity in the game and our perseverance and the sacrifices we’ve put in.”
Stoughton last won the Worlds in 1996.
“For a long time it was getting hard to be third or fourth or fifth, trying to get back to this,” he said. “You’re so close, but so far. It does get frustrating. But this makes up for all of it.”
It was a night when Scottish skip Brewster and Canadian vice-skip Jon Mead were celebrating very special birthdays — No 37 for Brewster, a native of St. Andrews, and No. 44 for Mead, who was born in Regina.
It was the first world success for Mead and second Reid Carruthers, but the second for lead Steve Gould, who was with Stoughton when he won his previous title 15 years ago at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton.
This was his third global final and the third time his team has faced off against a Scottish side. Stoughton defeated Warwick Smith of Perth in 1996, lost to Hammy McMillan of Stranraer in 1999 and won this year against a 37-year-old veteran from Aberdeen who had assembled a team of youngsters and qualified for his first Worlds since winning the global junior title the year before Stoughton won his first world men’s crown.
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Sweden claims bronze medal at Ford World Men’s
They might have missed the odd cue this week, but Sunday afternoon was showtime for Niklas Edin and Co. Despite a disappointing week at the 2011 Ford World Men’s Curling Championship, presented by Richardson, Sweden finished on a high note — earning a bronze medal with a 7-6 victory over Norway at the Brandt Centre.
“We really focused on a good game here,” said Edin, skip of Sweden’s Karlstad-based entry that includes third Sebastian Kraupp, second Fredrik Lindberg, and lead Viktor Kjaell, “because this tournament has really been unfortunate for us.
“I think we played about as well as we thought we could, but we’ve had some odd mistakes and a couple of really bad breaks, and that’s not like us,” added Edin. “Today, we were a bit more hungry out there. We really tried to nail every shot, every time.
“This takes a lot of pressure off us. We really wanted to pick up that medal, and the bronze means the world to us.”
The Swedes landed a solid blow with two in the eighth end, making it 6-4, as Edin drew to the button for the deuce after Norwegian skip Thomas Ulsrud had come up short on a draw attempt with his final stone.
Norway countered with two of its own in the ninth. Edin knocked two of his own stones out of the rings trying to remove a Norwegian guard with his first throw, and Ulsrud took full advantage with a hit-and-minimal-roll for a pair.
In the 10th, the house was empty until Edin drew into the 12-foot ring with his first stone. Ulsrud removed the rock and stayed in the 12-foot, but Edin executed a near-perfect draw, grabbing a piece of the button for the game-winning single.
It was the first medal for the Swedes at the men’s world championship since 2004, when Peja Lindholm — currently Sweden’s national coach — captured gold on home soil at Gavle, Sweden.