(by Larry Wood)
It’s going to be same-old, same-old in the Capital One Canada Cup men’s championship final.
And Glenn Howard of Coldwater, Ont., who executed a perfect 100 per cent effort on skip’s rocks in Saturday night’s 9-5 semi-final ousting of Winnipeg’s Jeff Stoughton, is hoping the same-old will extend to the finish at the Cranbrook RecPlex.
Howard, the defending champion, faces a foe so familiar it’s almost family in Edmonton’s Kevin Martin. The same two collided last year in the final at St. Albert and Howard prevailed, 10-7, in a wild fracas.
Howard was chuckling as he came off the ice Saturday.
Photo: Glenn Howard will meet Kevin Martin in Sunday’s
final
“Who are we playing in the final?” he asked. “I think I know the guy. Battle of the baldies.”
In the Sunday 1:30 p.m. final (4:30 AT), Martin and his team of John Morris, Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert will have hammer and choice of rocks. A year ago, Howard had the first-end hammer but Martin stole a point only to give up three in the second end.
Howard and his team of Wayne Middaugh, Brent Laing and Craig Savill were
close to unbeatable in this semi, opening with a crucial deuce against Canadian champion Stoughton and maintaining control until applying a crushing three-ender for a 7-3 lead in the seventh exchange.
“It was one of the best games I’ve thrown this year, no question,” Howard opined when asked to rate his performance. Fact is, he didn’t miss a shot.
“I felt really good out there, I felt confident, I thought I was seeing everything really well, I could visualize those hack-weighters, I could see shots, I was in a good place this game.”
Stoughton and his troops never really connected in this joust but the Brier winner recalled the extra-end loss to Martin on Friday — a battle of unbeaten round-robin teams — was the most disappointing for him.
“We played great against Kevin, rather mediocre against Glenn. The disappointing game was against Kevin. An extra end and you have the hammer and no shot to win, that was the disappointment.