OLDS — Alberta Firefighters Championship Bonspiel organizing committee chair Cody Maetche is happy with how the 64th annual event turned out, despite the ice plant going down for about three hours.
The bonspiel was held Feb. 1-3 at the Olds Curling Club.
Maetche’s rink ended up winning the D side.
The Aaron Bartling rink of Edmonton won that A event and will now represent Alberta firefighters in the Canadian championship which will be held March 13-24 in Moosomin, Saskatchewan.
“We had lots of compliments on how well it was organized,” Maetche said during an interview with the Albertan.
The only hiccup occurred Thursday, when the ice plant went down for about three hours.
“Everything, all of our afternoon games, got pushed back three hours. So we kind of had a late night,” he said.
“We kind of we could feel a difference in the ice. And Rick, the ice maker from the rink, came and said ‘maybe after this game we’ll quit’ and I'm glad we did.
“It was just very sticky, very hard to get the rocks to the other end.”
Rather than risk having to cancel the whole event, it was decided to take the time out to have the plant repaired.
“We wanted it fair for everybody,” Maetche said. “They did a really good job of getting it back together, getting it fixed and working on that ice for us.”
By Saturday morning, Maetche’s rink -- which included lead Kyle Lytle, second Mike Lepiec and third Niklaus Nieder – ended up in the D side final versus team Wallace of Red Deer.
“We were down by three, coming home with last rock in the last end, and we snuck one in on the last rock,” he said.
Maetche was asked if Olds firefighters might bid to host the firefighter curling provincials again sometime.
“Yeah probably eventually,” he said.
However, “probably not for maybe a couple more years, anyway,” he added. “It was a lot of work.
“We’re very impressed and very happy with the outcome, but I think we'll take a couple years off and see where it goes from there.”
