Brent Gedak’s week had some ups and downs over the course of his hometown SaskTel Tankard but overall the week went fairly well for him and his team of third Clint Dieno, second Derek Owens and lead Shawn Meyer.
Gedak began the Tankard with a 5-1 win over the Jeff Hartung team.
“Fortunately we got lucky and we were able to steal a few but for the most part it was a really close game,” Gedak said.
The ice in that first match was “great, with lots of curl,” Gedak added. “It was nice to get that under our belt.”
He then lost 10-4 to the young Brady Kendel rink from Saskatoon in the Thursday morning draw.
“We just had some inconsistencies,” Gedak said. “We were getting some curl when we weren’t expecting it… all game we were juggling them around. We practice this all year what’s going to happen if we come up against that. We’ll just write down what we learned and try to go from there.”
The fact that the morning draw wasn’t a factor, Gedak said.
“You’ve got to get up for every game, it just didn’t matter,” he said. “We just didn’t play well.”
The Thursday night draw, with attendance high at Affinity Place, saw Gedak drop a heartbreaker 7-5 to Ryan Deis’s team.
The team had three rocks pick on debris on the ice, but Gedak wasn’t using that as an excuse.
“There’s nothing you can do about the picks,” said Gedak. “They’re out there and we have to adjust to how we throw our rocks. The other team never had any. They were throwing with a little more rotation than us… It’s part of the game.”
Gedak curled well at times, playing a perfect hit and roll to count two in the fourth end to tie at that time 2-2. But it wasn’t enough for a well-curled game by the Deis team.
That set up a Friday afternoon draw against the veteran Randy Bryden team, a game which Gedak won 6-4.
“We had the right angles today and the guys made some great shots,” said Gedak after Friday’s early afternoon draw.
The team played with the lead after stealing two in the fourth end. The team overall curled better than they did Thursday.
“We struggled a little bit with the rocks yesterday,” Gedak said. “Today we got a good set and our coach was doing some scouting and found a set we wanted.”
But overall, the pressure hadn’t gotten to them Friday afternoon like it may have Thursday night.
The pressure hadn’t gotten to them in that match or in the 7-3 win over the Jason Jacobson rink Friday night in front of what again was a full house.
“We’re going to have to play that good throughout the weekend here to finish,” Gedak said after the match. “If we don’t play that well we won’t win. We’ve gotten our feet wet, we’re starting to get a feel for the ice and we’re just going to keep going.”
Their next match was against Scott Bitz, another Tankard vet who got better as the week went on. Bitz beat them Saturday morning 9-7 to end Gedak’s Tankard.
“We played well, we played strong as a team together,” said Gedak after the match. “Unforuntately we just lost a few games.”
The Gedak team had a lot of difficulty getting all the Bitz rocks out of play in the early going.
“We started without hammer so we were trying to get things going a little bit so we don’t just go up and down and keep the advantage in his court,” Gedak said. “Just couldn’t get on the right inch early in the game and they got a deuce on us early.”
