News Tour Challenge

Throwback Thursday (TBT) digs through the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling archives to bring you historical moments of the series. This week we rewind to the November 2016 and the Tour Challenge in Cranbrook, B.C.

The 2016 Masters didn’t go too well for Edmonton’s Team Sweeting. Like, not at all well. Like, 0-4 and heading home before the weekend.

When Sweeting opened the following Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling event, the Tour Challenge (Tier 1), with a loss to Team Middaugh, it seemed like the same story but not quite. It was a close 7-5 win for Middaugh, who stole two in the eighth end to pull off the victory. There were some positives to take away from the match for Team Sweeting as they kept at it and capitalized as other teams struggled with figuring out the ice and matching their rocks.

First was a 9-3 victory over Team Hasselborg — Sweeting scored three in the fifth end to take the lead and stole pairs of points in back-to-back ends — followed by a 6-5 extra-end win over Team Jones. Again, steals came into play with Sweeting swiping points in three consecutive ends.

Fun fact: It was the first time Sweeting defeated Jones in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling series.

“It was interesting in the first, we were figuring out the rocks a little bit,” skip Val Sweeting said after the win. “There was quite a big difference in curl between different ones, but as soon as we figured that out I thought the girls were throwing them really good. It was just a matter of getting the broom in the right spot. We just stayed patient, took chances when we had them and I thought it was a really good battle out there.”

“Even our first game I thought was a really good game. We just kind of let it slip away,” she added. “The girls are playing amazing, they’re on top of the ice out there and it just makes everything go smoothly.”

Things continued smoothly indeed as Sweeting topped Team Paetz 6-3 to finish round-robin play with a 3-1 record and qualify for the playoffs.

That set up a quarterfinal match with Team Fleury, which ended similar to Sweeting’s first game of the tournament only with the tables flipped. This time Sweeting stole two in the eighth to take a 7-5 victory when Fleury’s last rock wrecked on a guard.

Sweeting thumped Team Flaxey, the 2014 Masters champs, 9-2 in the semifinals to book a spot in the championship game. While Flaxey opened with the hammer, Sweeting stole eight points over the first four ends to lead 8-0 at the break. Flaxey got on the scoreboard with a deuce in the fifth to break the shutout. Sweeting finally held the hammer in the sixth and added another single to bring out the handshakes early.

“Even though we didn’t have the hammer we had the set of rocks that we wanted,” Sweeting said. “I think that we were really confident having that good lineup going in because we’ve had a few different ones throughout the week that reacted differently, so we had a lot of confidence knowing what they’re going to do going in.”

Meeting Sweeting in the final was Michelle Englot, who was playing in her first Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling event since taking over Kristy McDonald’s former squad at the start of the season. Englot jumped out to a 2-0 lead stealing a couple in the first end. Sweeting settled for a single in the second, but then it was all aboard the steal train once again. Sweeting stole points in the following three ends to lead 5-2 after five.

Englot added a deuce in six to narrow the gap to one, but Sweeting put it away in the seventh with a three-ender to win 8-4.

“The girls were playing so well,” Sweeting said. “I didn’t get off to a good start myself, but they held me in there. We just kept doing what we’ve been doing all week figuring out the ice and learning after every shot. We just plugged away and it turned out well for us.”

It was the second title win in the series for Sweeting, second Dana Ferguson and lead Rachel Brown, who also captured the 2014 Masters with super spare Cathy Overton-Clapham at third. Lori Olson-Johns joined the tripod full-time at third following that event, so the Tour Challenge win was her first championship in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling.

Those Masters woes were a thing of the past. Team Sweeting didn’t miss the playoffs again during the 2016-17 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season and finished runner-up to Jones at the Players’ Championship. Sweeting’s overall strong performance on the year earned the team the GSOC Bonus Cup and the $75,000 prize.

Sweeting looks to defend the Tour Challenge title, Sept. 5-10 at the Co-operators Centre at Evraz Place in Regina. Full event passes, weekend passes and single draw tickets are available at Ticketmaster.ca or by calling 1-855-985-5000. You don’t miss out on the first event of the 2017-18 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season!