Michael Dahms didn't want to see Garnet Boese so early in the proceedings of the Budweiser Kelly Cup.
Last year, the two skips threw stones at each other in the championship game of the men's curling bonspiel and Dahms emerged with an 8-5 victory and his first-ever Kelly title.
From last year's final, to a second-round match-up this year.
Dahms and Boese squared off Friday morning at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club. And, even though Dahms wasn't terribly excited about such a tough test at such a preliminary stage of the 34-team event, he handled it perfectly. He scored five points in the first end and went on to post a 7-1 win.
"It's definitely not a match you want that early in the weekend but we played well," Dahms said.
Dahms and his crew of J.T. Blanchett, Chris Calder and Rick LeBlanc played so well, in fact, that the Boese rink -- including Dave Johnston, Wade Eberle and Bob Kapphahn -- decided to shake hands after the fourth end so they could preserve themselves for a potential long road back to contention.
The five-ender to start Friday's game was the result of tricky ice and the high number of rocks in play.
"He was just trying to freeze [to our rocks] and he was catching straight spots and just hanging open and we were hitting and rolling behind," Dahms said. "He was facing four rocks on both his [skip stones] and he came heavy on the first one and I hit and rolled out and then he came up light and I had a nose hit for five.
"After that, it was cruise control -- you just try not to make any mistakes."
Dahms beat Brock MacFarlane in his Thursday night opener and Boese defeated Bud Burbee.
On Friday night, Dahms was on the ice against Bill Lim. In that game, Dahms fell behind early, fought back, but lost 10-6. Lim used the win to advance to the eight-team Kelly Cup round, while Dahms will now try to get into the Kelly round from the B event.
The Kelly Cup quarterfinals are planned for 8 tonight. Semifinals are scheduled for noon on Sunday, and the championship game is slated for 3:30 p.m.
Repeating as Kelly Cup champion is extremely difficult to do. But, Dahms likes his chances.
"Everyone's been practicing the last two weeks so execution is not a problem," he said. "I think if maybe a little luck comes into it hopefully we can do what we did last time."
