Team Saskatchewan captured the Optimist U18 International Curling Championships in Edmonton on Mar. 30 - Apr. 3.
Team Saskatchewan based out of the Wadena Curling Club featured Skip Mitchell Dales, third Dustin Mikush from Wadena, second Mitchell Schmidt and lead Braden Fleischhacker from Humboldt.
Winning the championship was an awesome experience, said Mikush.
“It was really a dream come true to go out there and win that thing knowing we’re playing some great teams and good other provinces.”
For Fleischhacker the curling gold was especially impressive given he celebrated his 15th birthday five days after the bonspiel on Apr. 8.
“I couldn’t ask for anything more in curling right now at my age. I was very happy to be able to be with a team and a great group of guys that I was with to go and represent Saskatchewan and Humboldt and all the other communities and come home with a gold,” said Fleischhacker.
Fleischhacker said his teams’ mindset going into the tournament was cautiously optimistic.
“We were shocked and amazed to believe that we had actually won that tournament. We had went into it thinking that we wouldn’t do bad but we thought that we would run into some trouble and eventually lose a couple of games here and there.”
The team opened the bonspiel with a 4-3 win over Minnesota and they just kept on rolling from there.
They finished the round robin portion of their schedule with a perfect 5-0 record that included the aforementioned win against Minnesota as well as wins against Japan 6-3, New Brunswick 7-3, Ontario 7-1, and British Columbia 5-4.
Thanks to their perfect 5-0 record they advanced to the semi-final where they played against Manitoba.
Saskatchewan fell behind early trailing 2-0 after two ends and 3-1 through four.
Saskatchewan scored three in the fifth to take their first lead of the game 4-3 but it was short lived as Manitoba answered with a deuce of their own to regain a one point advantage.
Saskatchewan had hammer in the seventh end needing a point to tie and managed to blank the end sending it to the eighth and final end 5-4 in favour of Manitoba with Saskatchewan having the hammer.
Saskatchewan picked up a deuce in the eighth end to escape with a 6-5 win and advance to the championship.
In the final they curled against Quebec.
Saskatchewan took the early lead scoring a single in the first end but Quebec answered with a single of their own in the second end and a deuce in the fourth to take a 3-1 lead at the midway mark.
After the break Saskatchewan picked up a huge four point in the fifth end and another in the sixth end to pull out to a 6-3 lead.
Quebec did not go away easy though as they picked up a single in the seventh to cut the lead to two and stole two in the eighth end to tie the score at six.
Heading to an extra end Saskatchewan had the hammer and took full advantage scoring a single in the ninth end to win the championship 7-6 over Quebec.
Fleischhacker was very pleased with how the team curled throughout the week saying they curled as well as they could have.
“We worried about our next shot one rock at a time and didn’t think in the future about what might happen then just focused on the current situation and it turned out good for us and it showed all weekend.”
Despite playing really well, Mikush said he still felt extra pressure.
“A little more nerve racking knowing you’re not just representing your own team and your family and friends but you’re also representing Saskatchewan so you always want to do good not just for yourself but for the whole province…and I think we did that.”
He also said that the experience was not much more than he could ask for as he moves on in his curling career.
Since Mikush is now over the age limit for the under 18 competition he will move on to the under 20 category and will continue his career in the men’s game as well where he gained some experience this season.
For Fleischhacker, he still has a couple of years of under 18 curling left in his career but with the tournament no longer being held he will now look to capturing the provincial and the newly created national championships next year, albeit with a new team.
