And so tonight is the night.
We find out whether Kevin Koe comes home with a medal or not. Naturally, we all want him to. Heck, even I'll put aside my objectivity and cheer for the guy.
It would be an amazing achievement – the first NWT-born athlete to ever win an Olympic medal of any colour and it begs this question: would he get a key to the city, Mayor Mark Heyck? Kind of hard to argue against it. He is Yellowknife-born, after all.
But keys aside, let's just put everything together and say that it's been an amazing ride. One we all expected him to take considering Canada is always the prohibitive favourite at any major international curling event the country sends teams to. Maybe not the odds-on favourite – Niklas Edin of Sweden put on a helluva show, especially against Koe in the round-robin, where he wasn't missing anything – but still, not the team you want to come up against if you're struggling.
Kevin Koe, centre, watches the line as Ben Hebert, left, and Marc Kennedy keep the brooms ready during action at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea on Feb. 17. No matter what happens, Koe has done the North proud.
It all started out well enough, a bit nervy but well nonetheless. Four straight wins does wonders for the nerves. Trouble is you can never tell whether Koe is nervous or not. I joked with people here in the newsroom that you could take Koe's face and make a mosaic depicting all of the emotions: happy, sad, angry, surprised etc. The look is the same every time.
The game against Edin was always going to be tough and it was for the reason I stated already. Edin took Koe's best and gave it right back to him just as good and plenty. The loss to Switzerland was a downer but the one to the United States was the one where the country began to hiccup.
A reminder: the women's rink, skipped by Rachel Homan, had lost its first three to start their round-robin and it looked like a reversal of sorts.
But Kevin Koe, is Kevin Koe. Nothing to worry about. All is well. Everything is under control.
I spoke with Jamie Koe, who's over in South Korea cheering on big brother, this past Monday and he told me the game against Japan would be a statement game. And that it was as if the Koe of old came back and he didn't let his foot off of the gas pedal one bit, forcing the Japanese to shake hands after nine ends.
Same deal with the final round-robin tilt against Denmark on Tuesday as they came out with a four-spot with the hammer to open up the game and just kept squeezing Danish skip Rasmus Stjerne to the point where Stjerne made mistake after mistake to open it up for Koe. Stjerne shook hands after eight ends and it was more a sense of confidence rather than relief as Koe and company walked off. At least for me, it was.
The semifinal was a game which Marc Kennedy called the toughest of them all. You see, unlike the Brier, which uses the Page playoff format, the Olympic format is the semifinals and then the gold medal game for the winners and the bronze medal game for the losers. Win your semifinal and you're guaranteed some sort of neckwear, the game being a chance to upgrade your loot. Lose it and you're in a dogfight to get on the podium.
This is where Koe had an advantage of sorts. Kennedy and Ben Hebert were the front end for Kevin Martin at the 2010 Winter Olympics, where Canada won gold. Kennedy and Hebert have that Olympic experience and don't think Koe hasn't leaned on that this time around. Koe went out and put this very team together with the goal of getting to the Olympics and it's paying off so far.
It's going to be a late night for me because I will be up watching it. Don't know about my wife and the kids, but I'll be there as I'm sure almost everyone who has nothing to do tomorrow will be. Even if you have something to do, you'll probably be watching it. This is the closest Yellowknife and the NWT has come to an Olympic medal so let's enjoy it.
And if he wins gold, let's all go out and make some noise. Honk the car horns, bang the pots and pans, yell, scream and just go nuts. We need a reason to do so and this is it. Don't worry about waking the neighbours because they'll most likely be joining you. If anyone gives you a hard time because you're happy, tell them that McCarthy guy from the paper said it was OK. I'm a big boy and can take the abuse.
Oh, and one more thing, Mr. Mayor: shine that key up nice.