Harnden vaults into playoff round

There was no such thing as bad luck for Al Harnden on this Friday the 13th.

Entering the day facing near elimination, Harnden found himself in the playoff round by the end of a near perfect day at the 2004 Northern Ontario Men's Curling Championship at the Soo Curlers Association.

Sitting at 2-4 after Thursday's seventh draw, Harnden, with Eric Harnden, E.J. Harnden and Rob Thomas, needed to win their last two round robin games on Friday and receive some help in the form of losses from other teams.

Harnden took care of the part he could control and won his first draw on Friday morning against Atikokan's Bruce Melville as Eric Harnden needed a draw on his final stone to secure a 7-6 victory. In the afternoon draw, Harnden responded again with a nine-end 6-4 win over Kirkland Lake's Rob McKelvey.

With Harnden now sitting at 4-4, the team needed one of three teams to lose out and Sudbury's Chris Johnson did just that. After starting the day at 4-2, Johnson lost twice on Friday fall to 4-4 and setup a tiebreaker draw with Harnden on Friday night.

In the tiebreaker, the Harnden rink got off to a quick start and put Johnson in trouble in the first end. With his final rock, Johnson converted a double takeout but still gave up a steal of two to Harnden.

In the fifth end with the score tied at 3-3, Eric Harnden, who throws skip stones for the rink, played a tap back for a pair after a measurement to take a 5-3 lead.

Johnson attempted to claw back with one in the sixth but Harnden responded with one in the seventh and three in the ninth end after another tap by Eric Harnden to take a 9-5 win.

Team Harnden will now advance into the page playoff round on Saturday at 9 a.m. Harnden, who gained fourth place with the tiebreaker win, will face third place Jeff Currie from Thunder Bay. The winner will advance into the semi-final at 2 p.m. while the loser is eliminated.

In the other page playoff, first place finisher Denis Malette from Thunder Bay, who completed the round robin with a perfect 8-0 record, will meet Haileybury's Rob Gordon, who finished second at 5-3. The winner will advance to the championship game at 7:30 p.m. while the loser will move into the semi-final draw.

In other results from the final two round robin draws, Malette beat Johnson 6-3, Currie used a four-point first end and three more in the fifth to beat Timmins' Dave MacInnes 9-8 and Sudbury's Tim Phillips scored a 7-5 victory over McKelvey.

In the afternoon draw, Malette doubled MacInnes 8-4, Melville used a pair of three-point ends to beat Johnson 9-2 and Gordon stole two points in the tenth end to defeat Currie 9-7.

*** STANDINGS:

Final:

Malette 8-0 Gordon 5-3 Currie 5-3 Johnson 4-4 Harnden 4-4 Phillips 3-5 Melville 3-5 McKelvey 2-6 MacInnes 2-6