The 2016 Estevan Curling Classic came down to the final shot, a fitting end to a tremendous weekend on the ice at the World Curling Tour event.
With a successful takeout in the final end, Saskatoon's Randy Bryden defeated fellow Saskatoon skip Bruce Korte 5-4 in the A-Final on Sunday evening at the Power Dodge Curling Centre.
"There was lots of great curling, the ice allowed for a lot of great shots and certainly we got a few breaks here and there," expressed Bryden following his victory.
"We played well throughout the weekend, despite playing the maximum of 8 games so I'm a little tired now," Bryden chuckled.
Korte jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the final. Bryden responded with a single only to see Korte answer back with a single of his own.
After a blanked 4th end, Bryden added another single in the 5th and trailed 3-2 heading into the 6th end. That's when the turning point in the final occurred as Bryden stole two points in the 6th to take a 4-3 lead with only two ends to play.
Bryden played a great defensive 7th end, allowing only a single to Korte to tie the game at 4-4 which meant Bryden would have the hammer in the final end.
Bryden used the hammer to perfection, setting up the house and executing a perfect takeout on his final shot to win the Estevan Curling Classic.
Bryden rink consists of Third: Troy Robinson - Second: Brock Montgomery - Lead: Trent Knapp. As Bryden added after the championship game, one of his players raised the bar before the weekend with previous success at the Estevan Curling Classic.
"We had Montgomery win it last year (with Josh Heidt's rink) so he put a little pressure on us to make sure our game was there," smiled Bryden. "But anytime you get a win, it feels good. You feel like you can go out there and compete with everybody else out there."
As mentioned, Bryden's rink played the maximum amount of games allowed at the tournament. After falling to Estevan's Brent Gedak (6-4) in the opener, Bryden responded by beating Shaun Meacham (7-1) and Jeff Hartung (7-6) before being pushed to the brink of elimination with a loss against Jason Ackerman.
Bryden then rattled off four straight wins, which included a second victory over Meacham (8-2), payback against Gedak in the quarterfinal on Sunday (4-2), a semi-final win over Carl deConinck-Smith (5-3) before edging out Korte (5-4) in the championship.
At the end of the event, Bryden could speak better than anyone on the outstanding job the host committee did both on and off the ice.
"This was very fun ice to play on," commented Bryden. "And if they have ice like this all the time, more and more people are going to come to Estevan to curl because it was great."
"Kudos to the ice-man who did a great job, and the club as well because they took good care of us all weekend."
The payout for the Estevan Curling Classic is as follows:
1st - $7,000 - Randy Bryden
2nd - $4,000 - Bruce Korte
3rd/4th - $2,500 - Kody Hartung & Carl deConinck-Smith
5th-8th - $1,500 - Drew Heidt, Jason Jacobson, Jason Ackerman, Brent Gedak
Check out our photo gallery from the weekend at the Estevan Curling Classic.