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Armitage honoured for worlds win

A sense of desperation, a craving to seize the moment, was behind the perfect record posted by Rob Armitage and his Red Deer foursome at the recent world senior men’s curling championship.“Chances are we were only going to get one run at it,” Armitage said Saturday, while being honoured by more than 50 long-time friends and Red Deer Curling Centre members Saturday at The Hideout, two weeks after winning the senior men’s global title at Fredericton, N.B.

A sense of desperation, a craving to seize the moment, was behind the perfect record posted by Rob Armitage and his Red Deer foursome at the recent world senior men’s curling championship.

“Chances are we were only going to get one run at it,” Armitage said Saturday, while being honoured by more than 50 long-time friends and Red Deer Curling Centre members Saturday at The Hideout, two weeks after winning the senior men’s global title at Fredericton, N.B.

“It’s a long climb to get back. We know hard it is to win Alberta and how hard it is to win Canada, so when you get to worlds you really feel you should close the deal because it probably is not as tough as winning the Canadian championship, or even Alberta.

“If you let it go and you get to one of those one-game playoffs and you lose — and everyone knows how that can happen, in any sport — you feel like it’s a wasted opportunity.”

Armitage and third Keith Glover, second Randy Ponich and lead Wilf Edgar were clearly the class of the world championship, consistently curling in the high 80 per cent range while recording an 11-0 slate that included a 6-4 victory over New Zealand in the title contest. All four members of the Canadian team were tournament all-stars.

The world champs vacationed in the Maritimes for a week before returning to Central Alberta last Friday.

“It’s starting to sink in . . . what we really accomplished,” said Armitage.

The Red Deer Curling Centre crew competed in the senior worlds after winning the 2012 Canadian championship at Abbotsford, B.C. Although the team failed to defend its provincial crown this year and get back to the nationals, all four curlers were lights out in Fredericton.

“We had a few tight games but by the eighth (and final) end we had them in control,” said Armitage. “I think we might have played even better than we played at the Canadians last year. We were a little more dominant (at the worlds), we seemed to have a really good grip on the ice, especially for draw weight.”

That knowledge didn’t come by accident.

“We put in the effort. We would practise usually every night at nine,” said Armitage. “We had 7 p.m. draws on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and all we had to do is stand there until the last game was done and we could access our ice for the next game.

“To not do that would have been fine if we had still won, but if we ever lost one game because of a tricky rock when all we had to do was spend another 15 minutes out there . . . well, that’s where coaching comes in and we were assigned a coach (Bill Tschirhart).

“We put in the time. We knew that extra 10 to 15 minutes could be valuable. We thought we may as well be out there and get a grip on the rocks.” With the possibility that this was their one-and-done trip to the world championship, Armitage and his rinkmates were all business all week.

“Some of the teams knew they really weren’t competitive and by mid week they were staring to have a little too much fun,” said Armitage.

The veteran skip said it’s too early to tell if the team will stay together for at least one more season.

“It’s a big time commitment, that’s my biggest concern,” said Armitage. “To get there (world championship) again you have to give up an awful lot of time and that takes a toll. Instead of going on holidays you go curling.

“There are choices and maybe we can pick it up and play together and hope to find that magic again. I’ll never say never. We’ve been there, we’ve climbed that mountain once and it was worth all the time and every cent we put into it.”

l Armitage noted that two of his former men’s teammates — Chris Schille and Shaun Meachem — also claimed championships this year, with Schille competing in the Brier at Edmonton as a member of Rob Virtue’s Saskatchewan team and Meachem skipping a Swift Current rink to the Saskatchewan mixed title.