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SLAM! Sports 2001 in Review A LOOK BACK INTERACTIVE ALSO ON SLAM! 
| Sunday, March 11, 2001 Ferbey captures Canadian men's curling championshipOTTAWA (CP) -- Dave Nedohin grew up in Winnipeg idolizing Kerry Burtnyk. On Sunday, Nedohin beat his hero to win the Canadian men's curling championship. Nedohin, 27, who throws fourth rocks for Randy Ferbey's Alberta team, was named playoff MVP at the Nokia Brier for his shot-making in helping Alberta beat Manitoba's Burtnyk 8-4 in the final. Ferbey's team out of the Ottewell Curling Club in Edmonton will represent Canada -- along with the Halifax women's team skipped by Colleen Jones -- at the world curling championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, March 31 to April 8. Before moving to Sherwood Park, Alta., Nedohin had called Burtnyk about six years ago to ask if he had any openings on his team. "It was just an amazing, amazing feeling to see Kerry Burtnyk walking up to me to shake my hands after winning the Brier," Nedohin said. "I couldn't have dreamed a better scenario than playing Kerry Burtnyk and his entire team in a Brier final." Nedohin, second Scott Pfeifer and lead Marcel Rocque were playing in their first Brier with the 41-year-old veteran Ferbey. Ferbey, who throws third stones, won his third Canadian title after winning two with Alberta skip Pat Ryan in 1988 and '89. Ferbey, from Sherwood Park, Alta., wanted to retire from curling after this year, but he'll have to wait because his team also clinched a berth to the Olympic trials in Regina in December. "We're going to have a lot of invites to bonspiels, to the skins game, the trials in December, and the playdowns start in January so it might be a little unfair for myself to leave the team," Ferbey said. "Right now, I guess I'd have to say I'm sticking around for another year, unfortunately. I can't get out." Ferby captured Alberta's 19th Canadian championship -- second to Manitoba's 26 titles -- and first since Kevin Martin won in 1997. In addition to a berth in the Olympic trials and lucrative skins game next season, the players also qualify for athletic assistance funding as national champions. "It really hasn't even sunk in that we've been at the Brier yet and now we've won it," said Pfeifer, a former world junior champion. "You never imagine what the implications are until you've actually win the thing. You get to go to the Skins game, you get the funding. It's the biggest game any of us have played in our lives." Alberta went through the round robin 9-2, earned the top playoff seed and downed Ontario's Wayne Middaugh in a playoff game to advance to the final. "They played well enough all week to win it and played well enough on the weekend to win it," said Burtnyk, a two-time Canadian champion. "To go to this competition against these teams with only two losses is pretty incredible. Our hats go off to them." Ferbey's young teammates showed remarkable poise Sunday as Manitoba seemed to have early control of the game. The final was interrupted five times by a pigeon with an apparent stomach ailment which required periodic cleanups by the ice technicians and gave new meaning to the curler's phrase "the ice is fudgy." During the week at the Ottawa Civic Centre, a black cat made an appearance after a night draw, two large signs fell off the wall and the roof sprung a leak. Along with the bird, curling in the Civic Centre has been like curling in a prairie barn. The fire alarm also went off earlier in the week. Most of Sunday's final lacked the tension and electricity that the popular Guy Hemmings would have given it had he not lost in a playoff game to Burtnyk. The crowd of 9,129 at the Civic Centre wasn't hanging on the outcome of a game between two Western teams, but they were determined to have a good time and enjoy some good shots and the pigeon added a raucous element. Their focus turned from the bird to the curling after the fifth end, when the score was tied 4-4. Nedohin forced Burtnyk into a difficult choice in the ninth end when he hit and rolled to the four-foot rings to lay three for Alberta. Burtnyk needed a multiple-scoring end to avoid being down without the hammer coming home, but he missed on a triple takeout. Alberta scored two and Burtnyk opted to shake hands. "It was a Hail Mary. It was a low-percentage chance," Burtnyk said. "We felt that even if I drew for one, the chances of stealing two ends in a row were probably pretty slim anyway. If I make that shot, we're one-up coming home." Nedohin had headed to the washroom, thinking there was another end to go when someone told him Burtnyk had raised the white flag. "I must have mowed down four or five people running out there," he said. Manitoba third Jeff Ryan wrecked on a guard in the eighth end and Ferbey threw a perfect split to lay three. That led to a score of two and a 6-4 Alberta lead when Burtnyk couldn't get any roll behind cover off his takeouts. Nedohin just had to make a straight takeout for two. Nedohin saved Alberta from real trouble in the fourth end when he made a double takeout to the button to score one and prevent Manitoba from taking a 3-1 lead. Ferbey picked the deuce in the sixth as the game's turning point, but Pfeifer chose the fourth end. "If he didn't make that, we'd be down two to basically one of the best teams in the world and you don't want to do that," he said. "The two in six didn't hurt at all, either." The total attendance at the 2001 Brier was 154,136, which is fourth-best all-time. The 2002 Brier will be held at Calgary's Pengrowth Saddledome. |