They were trying to enjoy every second of the event, and with the way it ended, there is no doubt the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling event in North Bay will truly be memorable for Matt Dunstone and his team.
An 8-5 win over 11-time champions Team Brad Gushue in the finals at Memorial Gardens was something Dunstone says they could have never anticipated happening.
“This is fun, never going to forget this moment for the rest of my life,” says Dunstone.
It was the second time this weekend that Dunstone had to beat Gushue, overcoming the veteran on opening night on Tuesday.
It was a nail biter right down to the wire, even as Dunstone built a 6-3 lead through the fifth, and tacked on a single in the seventh, Gushue was within reach needing a deuce to force an extra end, but couldn’t pull it out.
After Gushue’s last rock missed the mark, Dunstone celebrated, dropping to his knees with tears of joy streaming down his face.
“It’s Brad Gushue, I don’t know what else to tell you,” Dunstone said following the win.
“He’s won 11 of these and probably has more experience than all of us combined, times five. It’s just, try to do what you can do, you know he's going to pour pressure on you no matter what the score is, no matter what end it is, no matter what rock it is, he is going to pour pressure on you. So we just had to stick to our guns, stick to what we were doing and continue to enjoy the process.”
That was a theme for the team throughout the week, to enjoy the atmosphere and soak in the support North Bay was giving them. Dunstone said.
“You could tell that they were having so much fun. It made it easy for us, especially going into this final game, a lot of the slams you go to, don’t have this kind of fan support. So we said, let’s just enjoy this, we’re lucky to have this fan support and their very knowledgeable fans as well. There are hundreds of other teams in the world that would do anything to be where we were so let's just enjoy it and you never know when that opportunity is going to come back.”
Dunstone is hopeful that they will get plenty more opportunities to build on this win as the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling events continue throughout the winter and into the spring.
“We still have a lot of work to do. Our next goal is to make the Canada Cup," said the 24-year-old.
"We’re in a fight for the last spot there and we’ve put ourselves in a good position to do so, but we still have some work to do. It’s only October in a very long season.”
With the win, they collected $35,000. As well as 12 Pinty’s Cup points plus a spot in the season-ending Humpty’s Champions Cup.
