Garnet Boese and Dave Johnston lived a curling highlight last weekend.
They wouldn't mind experiencing another one at this weekend's Kelly Cup.
Boese and Johnston are the skip and third respectively on a Kelly Cup team that also includes second Wade Eberle and lead Bob Kapphahn. At the 86th annual Kelly, which started Thursday at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club, the Boese rink is off to a 2-0 start and has already qualified for the championship round.
A Kelly Cup title would be the first for Boese and fourth for Johnston.
"The end goal is always the same -- you want to get to the Kelly final," Boese said.
So far, Boese and company have recorded victories against Bill Cameron and Brian Bailey. If their streak of success continues, they may just find themselves in Sunday's championship game, slated for 1:30 p.m. at the PGGCC.
For Boese and Johnston, wins have been plentiful lately. At the senior men's provincial championship in Kelowna last weekend, they were part of a rink that went 7-1 overall. Included in that record was a 7-4 decision against the Doug Meger foursome in the final game. Now, the P.G. curlers will be part of Team B.C. for senior nationals, March 17-25 in Abbotsford. The other members of the rink are skip Dennis Graber and third Brian Windsor, both of whom reside in Kamloops.
Boese, 54, became a provincial champion for the first time. He has been curling since he was 14.
"It was kind of surreal," he said of the Feb. 19 win against Meger, a game in which Meger had a 4-1 lead after six ends. "I think it's sinking in more and more now."
Boese said the key to winning provincials was all the work the players put in beforehand.
"We practiced our butts off," he said with a chuckle. "I haven't practiced in years. Because I've been coaching, I haven't even been playing competitively."
The road back to high-level competition started with a phone call from Graber, whom Boese had known when they both lived in Grande Prairie in the late 1970s. In November, Graber asked Boese if he'd be interested in throwing rocks at the senior provincials. Boese answered in the affirmative but said he'd like friend and long-time playing partner Johnston to be in the mix as well.
When Boese contacted Johnston with the news -- and the fact the rink would be playing in a preliminary event in Terrace -- Johnston hesitated only slightly in giving his answer.
"I knew I'd have to miss my nephew's wedding [that weekend] but I went, 'This is too sweet an opportunity,'" Johnston said. "It was an opportunity to play with someone I've been friends with for a long time. And right from the get-go, I knew that we had a really good crack to win the provincials."
At the B.C. bonspiel, the Graber group found itself in a lot of tight games, and games in which comebacks were necessary. The team was helped greatly by the fact it had former world champion Rick Folk as coach. Folk is from Kelowna so he knows the ice conditions at the Kelowna Curling Club extremely well.
"We had a little sit-down and he explained a lot to us," Boese said. "We took it up fairly well and paid attention."
The 55-year-old Johnston said it was "phenomenal" to have Folk in their corner.
"Just his calmness made me feel calm," Johnston said. "He'd just go, 'Yeah, you're down a couple points. No worries, just get your point here, and you're going to get two or three chances and you've just got to capitalize on them.' If he said the word 'patient' once, he said it 20 times, and he was correct."
Johnston already has high hopes for nationals.
"I'll be disappointed if we don't make the playoffs," he said. "That would be our goal -- to make the playoffs, and then you see what you do from there. I really think we have four players that can do it."
