1999 Brier
SLAM! Sports
SLAM! Curling
1999 BRIER
ON THE ROCKS
INTERACTIVE
ALSO ON SLAM!
Flatlanders party flat out
The stubble-jumpers' skip delivered a double takeout on his last rock on Saskatoon Day, to clinch life beyond the round-robin and send 10 buses full of flatlanders home in high spirits.
"He was a (Brier) newcomer and no one knew how he'd react to the crowd and the pressure but he's been doing the province proud," said an ebullient Al Christensen, who joined the convoy in Saskatoon and began tippling "a few miles" out of town.
The booster shot of fevered fans into Skyreach was intended to sell the Edmonton crowd on making the trip to Saskatoon, where next year's Brier is already halfway to a sellout. The six-hour bus trip itself - nine buses from Saskatoon and one from an hour farther north - sold out in days.
"They were jumping around, drinking, screaming and telling the worst Monica Lewinsky jokes," Tammy Jellison said of her busmates. They hit the border before business hours, but "they opened the LBS (provincial liquor store) in Lloydminster specially for us."
By the time the 1 p.m. draw began, the crowd was cheering every routine draw or guard like it was a haymaker at a heavyweight bout.
Shymko responded by shooting the lights out ... and then punching the sky.
"That was for the Saskatoon fans," explained the Yorkton farmer after beating B.C. 5-4. "A lot of them left at four and five in the morning and fired us up."
The fans are dreaming of Saskatchewan's first title since Rick Folk in 1980. The last time they showed up in Edmonton in such numbers, the Roughriders were on their way to a walloping in the 1997 Grey Cup. But Shymko and Co. won more games in five days than the Roughriders did all of last year.
"It's such a logjam - but he could do it!" offered Greg Loberg, high in the upper bowl.
After a green-themed show at the Brier Patch the buses took off for home at 7 p.m., which was fine with superfan Tammy Wawirk: "It's hard to just watch it here ... I wanna go home and I wanna curl."