TBT: Stoughton steps back at 2015 Players’ Championship
Throwback Thursday (TBT) digs through the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling archives to revisit historic moments of the series.
When Jeff Stoughton hit the ice at Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre for the 2015 Players’ Championship, we had no idea if we’d ever see him again in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling.
Stoughton had announced prior to the tournament he was stepping back from curling but never actually used the word “retire” in his farewell message. It was more like “see you later” as Stoughton has returned twice to the series since at the Princess Auto Elite 10 and will make a compete at this year’s Players’ Championship filling in on Team Carruthers.
Anyway, Stoughton played with third Rob Fowler, second Alex Forrest and lead Connor Njegovan back in 2015 and were in for a rude welcome in their first game against Team Brad Jacobs. The eventual champs rolled out with a deuce to start and stole a pair in the second during the 7-1 victory.
It got worse before it got any better as Stoughton dropped to a 0-2 record following a 5-4 loss to John Epping.
Team Stoughton celebrated, ahem, Throwback Thursday by wearing retro Manitoba jackets during their introductions but Njegovan took it one more step by also sporting vintage Stoughton’s centre part haircut.
Njegovan explained how it went down in a recent interview although not everyone was a fan of the feathery flow such as his girlfriend (now fiancée) Selena Kaatz.
“I went to go get the haircut and showed the picture of Jeff,” Njegovan said. “The girl didn’t speak very good English and she kept saying, ‘No! No!’ and I’m like, ‘Yup. Please do it.’ Selena doesn’t ever let me live that one down very much.”
Hour till game time. Here is the first attempt at the legendary centre part @grandslamcurl @TeamJStoughton #flow pic.twitter.com/jLs7kd2eAn
— Connor Njegovan (@Njegovan33) April 8, 2015
Get a haircut or don't come home @Njegovan33
— Selena Kaatz (@SelenaKaatz) April 10, 2015
Stoughton held on to beat Glenn Howard 5-4 and scored two in the eighth to end former teammate Reid Carruthers 6-5 to level his record at 2-2 with one round-robin game remaining in the final draw against Steve Laycock to decide his fate.
Laycock opened with the hammer and jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the second. The teams alternated singles in three and five and again in six and seven as Stoughton held the hammer coming home down by a point. Stoughton held the hammer and faced two counters on his last, but he could only remove one and gave up a single as Laycock won 5-2. That eliminated Stoughton from playoff contention, but not before he delivered two more spin-a-ramas to delight the crowd.
“I would love to have played one more game, It was so close to make that double for three,” Stoughton said after. “There no doubt I’ll miss it and be grumpy come fall and want to play but it’s the right time. We knew it was coming and made the decision a while go but it’s still kind of like, ‘ugh.'”
Stoughton has kept busy off of the ice managing Canada’s mixed doubles program to gold at the Pyeongchang Games, but that hasn’t kept him away from the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling. The first brief comeback took place at the Princess Auto Elite 10 last season with Stoughton skipping a special Select squad featuring fellow legends Dave Nedohin, Nolan Thiessen and Jamie Korab.
Stoughton also competed in the Princess Auto Elite 10 this past weekend filling in at third and calling the game for Carruthers. The 54-year-old Stoughton will return to the Players’ Championship in Toronto, where he originally said goodbye, teaming up with Carruthers once more.
