Friday, November 30, 2001
Armstrong fired up for trials
Stoughton lead covets Olympic gold
By JIM BENDER -- Winnipeg Sun
Just watching from the stands the last time served to stoke the competitive fires within Doug Armstrong.
Now the lead for Jeff Stoughton, Armstrong will be the only one of the eight Manitoba curlers to be making his debut at the 2001 Canadian Curling Olympic Trials, which open in Regina tomorrow. But he first got "a feel for it" in Brandon back in 1997.
STRAIN
"You could see the strain on everybody because every single game and every single shot was pretty tough," recalled Armstrong, then lead for Dale Duguid, who would represent Manitoba in the 1998 Brier.
"And I wanted to get there pretty badly. I mean, all curlers want a chance at the Olympic gold medal. (Ontario's Mike) Harris didn't win in 1998 (as a demonstration sport) so, if Canada wins this time around, it will likely be the first gold medal and it would be pretty exciting to have that honour."
But it will be tougher to get there than to win the Olympic gold.
"At the Brier, you have the feeling that there are three games you should win and going into this one, there are no games you should lose," said Stoughton, a two-time Brier and former world champion. "There is no easy game where you might not play your best and get away with it. Every single game is important."
Stoughton, who opens against reigning Brier champ Randy Ferbey of Alberta tomorrow (TSN, 12:30 p.m.), is sliding into the trials on a roll. His Charleswood foursome has qualified in six cashspiels, winning two, and is fourth on the World Curling Tour money list with about $40,000 -- just a few bucks back of Alberta's Kevin Martin.
"Everyone's playing well, throwing well," said Stoughton, who also feels better prepared than he was in '97. "We may have had too busy a schedule. This time, we made a concerted effort to be well-rested and ready to go because there's no doubt that when you hit early December that sometime, you've played a little too much and can get burned out.
"So, we wanted to make sure the excitement was there and the wanting to play was there at the beginning of December. So, we decided to take kind of an easy road to the trials and hopefully, it was the right thing to do We're really starting to get excited and pumped up."
STUMBLED
In '97, Stoughton stumbled to a 1-4 start, then finished in a three-way tie for fourth with fellow Manitobans Kerry Burtnyk and Dave Smith at 5-4.
"I think we'll put a little more pressure on ourselves, wanting to get off to a better start than Jeff and I did last time," said second Garry Van Den Berghe. "I'm looking forward to it more this time. I think the chances of us winning it are even better than they were before.
"We're playing really well and we are definitely physically and mentally prepared better than we were last time."
Jonathan Mead was Smith's third at the '97 trials, then joined Stoughton later.
"There are different expectations than when we went with Dave," he said. "We were all pretty green. Dave had been to a Brier and so had Donnie (Harvey) but not with this makeup. We went there thinking that, if things went well for us, we might be able to hang around until the weekend and I think we did pretty good under the circumstances.
"What's different this time is that this team expects to win. If we put our best game on the ice, we have as good a chances as any of the other elite teams. What's unique about this event, though, is that Team Stoughton could play extremely well and struggle to get a victory. But we aren't going to be happy if we don't win."
2002 Games Curling Coverage
