Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Watching Holy Cross’ skip stick a perfect game winning shot, the NDSS Golden Hawks boys’ curling team were ready to concede a 7-4 defeat in the KASSAA championship game, held last Thursday in Kingston.
That was until one of the Crusader sweepers admitted he had in fact touched a stone with his broom. That negated the winning shot, meaning the Hawks stole a point in the end to make it 5-5 after eight ends.
The Hawks made good use of their second life, hanging on for a 6-5 victory and capturing the KASSAA title.
“It was 7-4 and I thought good game, we tried,” said Hawks head coach Mark Dunham. “Then nobody came off the ice because one of the Holy Cross guys said he burnt the stone. He didn’t know which stone he burnt, but he said he burnt one of them.”
By their own admission, the Hawks rink agreed the incidental touch had no effect on the final shot. They were ready to concede the game, however the decision wasn’t up to them.
“That’s the rule, you burn a rock and it comes off and you go back to the way it was before the shot,” said Dunham. “We had one sitting in the four foot, so tie game.”
“I think the mind set we went into it is it would be a new end and both of us would technically be at zero,” said Ethan Stein, the Hawks’ second.
Napanee made their shots in the ninth end and once again put pressure on the Crusaders to make a perfect shot to win. This time however, they missed their mark.
“We stayed level headed and didn’t get too excited,” Hawks skip Devlen Benton said of handling the pressure of a winner-take-all end.
It was Benton’s leadership that helped the team rally from an early 4-0 deficit to come back and win the game. The skip stuck to his game plan of playing a defensive game, chipping away for points while the Crusaders played a more aggressive game.
Earlier in the tournament Napanee defeated Ernestown 9-4 and Holy Cross 6-4. That gave the Hawks a double-life heading into the finals, which they needed after a 9-4 defeat to Holy Cross in the first game. They rebounded in the must-win final with the ninth end victory.
Though it wasn’t the way the Hawks wanted to win, the fact is they captured the KASSAA title and now advance to EOSSAA, which takes place March 4-5 in Pembroke.
A win there would advance the team to OFSSAA.
NDSS’ girls hockey team advanced to the KASSAA semifinals on Monday with a lopsided 12-0 win over Regi. They will face Holy Cross in the semifinals on Monday at Kingston’s Invista Centre.
NDSS’ boys hockey team finished their regular season with an 8-2 win over Sydenham. They will take on that same Sydenham team tomorrow when they face-off in the KASSAA quarter-finals at 2:30 p.m. at the SPC. Napanee was 6-2 on the season, finishing third in the standings.