Derrell Sears and John Campbell have put Armstrong on the map in the world of stick curling.
And as a thank-you for representing the city so well at the World Open Stick Curling Championships in Edmonton in late April, the Armstrong Curling Club threw a party for the pair who have curled as a team since 2016.
Roughly 50 people packed the Armstrong rink May 9 for a celebration of Sears and Campbell's accomplishment at the inaugural championship, held April 24-27 at the Saville Sports Centre, which Sears said had the best ice he's ever curled on.
"They treated us like professionals out there," Sears said.
In Campbell's estimation, there's always a pivotal moment in a championship run. He said theirs came midway through their second game.
The pair waited seven hours between games after winning their first game, and with great fatigue they found themselves down 3-1 in their second match. They called a timeout to settle things down.
"My first words were 'damn, we suck,'" Campbell said in his speech at Friday's party, to much laughter.
As it turned out, things clicked after the timeout. The pair earned the next four points and won that game, and never looked back the rest of the way through the tournament.
"There's always a turning point in a spiel, and I guarantee you that (timeout) was ours," Campbell said.
Another key to success was for the superstitious types: the pair donned the same shirts they wore in the first game, five days in a row.
The Armstrong team ended up repeating one of their round robin match-ups in the finals. The local duo beat that team 5-3 in the round robin, and 6-2 in the finals.
Sears and Campbell thanked all their supporters for coming out to the party, and thanked Terri Nicholson, past president of the Armstrong Curling Club, for organizing the event.
After the champions' speeches, a banner declaring their victory was produced. Sears and Campbell signed the banner, which will be displayed outside the curling club before being moved into the rink.
Though it was billed as a world championship, only Canadian teams took part in the World Open Stick Curling Championships in Edmonton, though teams from outside Canada competed in two other tournaments, the triples championship and the mixed doubles championship.
Stick curling has been around for at least 20 years and started being played at the Armstrong rink in 2009. It's a quicker sport than regular curling, taking only about 50 minutes to play six ends.
Up next, Sears and Campbell will be trying to "beat the hell out of each other" in regular season play at the Armstrong club, Campbell jokingly added.
