A native of Humboldt is a provincial champion again. Dustin Kalthoff and his partner Sherry Anderson took home top honours at the Saskatchewan Mixed Doubles Curling Championships held in Regina, Feb. 18-21.
The pairing of Kalthoff and the Delisle native ran the table through the tournament finishing with a 7-0 record that culminated with a 6-4 win over the team of Catlin Schneider and Nancy Martin.
Kalthoff said that winning the championship was very difficult and said he was very happy with his teams’ play.
“We started our first game, in our first end we were a little shaky and we played better as that game went on and it seemed like every game we played we just kept playing better and for it to culminate in a provincial championship is just awesome.”
The win was Kalthoff’s third provincial mixed doubles championship as he previously participated in the Canadian Championships in 2013 and 2014 including a silver medal at the 2013 tournament.
Kalthoff said that experience is going to be a big help for himself when he gets to the Canadian Championships.
“I won’t be just green and getting there and very nervous about playing in my first national final type situation.”
The win almost never happened for the Kalthoff/Anderson duo as the team was only formed the day before the application deadline, which resulted in very little opportunity for practice time.
“I called her and she said ‘ok I’ll think about it’ and then she must have talked to her husband and called me back five minutes later and said ‘yeah lets do it.’ We had three practice games before we went to the provincials just to get a sense of how one another throws and to get the rhythm of mixed doubles down,” said Kalthoff.
Kalthoff said between his business; Canadian curlers are amateurs and are not paid to curl, and his men’s team he was very focused on those two things this winter and only decided to ask Anderson after hearing her commentary at the Women’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts Provincial Championship.
“I was very impressed with listening to her approach to the game and her obvious level of knowledge and it just inspired me in that moment to go, ‘you know what, here’s a women that would be a treat to play with and if she’d be willing to I think it’d be lots of fun.’”
Making the transition from men’s curling to mixed doubles can be quite difficult for players, says Kalthoff, because there is a lot more skill involved.
“With a four man team you get to be an expert in one thing but you don’t have to be necessarily an expert at everything where with mixed doubles you really have to have the whole package of shots.”
Kalthoff also said that in mixed doubles curlers are also a little more alone on the curling sheet.
“When you are sitting in the hack in mixed doubles you can’t look up and look to your sweepers and go, ‘what do you guys think it is here,’ because you do that all the time in normal curling.”
Looking ahead to the Canadian Championships Kalthoff said there is a tremendous field of competitors at the event and said that it will feature most of the top curlers, men or women, that Canada has to offer.
Despite the tough competition Kalthoff says he is confident that he and Anderson can do well.
“I think that we can beat anybody who’s there. I’ve beat a lot of the teams already that are the top teams in the world and I’ll draw on that experience to maintain composure and not be intimidated by playing these top teams and not be intimidated by the situation.”
The championship runs from Mar. 31-Apr. 3 at the Nutana Curling Club in Saskatoon.
