Two of the three A finals came down to the last rock in the Whitehorse Curling Club’s 69th annual Solvest International Bonspiel at Mount McIntyre this past weekend.

Mark Evans, Whitehorse Curling Club president, said, “It’s been fantastic.”

124 curlers on 31 teams in men’s, women’s and mixed events took part.

Evans said the turnout for the first International in three years was slightly above average.

“It’s great for everyone to be together and for us to be curling, to be bon-spieling again. I really noticed that this weekend. Everyone is so pleased to be back on the ice and back together.

“If it was only for that, the bonspiel has been a tremendous success.”

In the men’s final, Jon Solberg’s rink had to wait for the last rock from the opposing skip Darol Stuart to claim a 6-4 victory.

Solberg’s rink featured two teens, Nico Fecteau, 13 and Nolan Floyd, 14, as well as Nico’s dad Steve, who hurled third rocks for the victors.

The Star spoke with Solberg after the tight match, which saw his rink take a 5-4 lead with a deuce in the seventh end.

“It feels good. We have a couple juniors on our team and they played really, really well. It’s nice to see the future of our sport with bringing the young kids out to play in this and hopefully groom them a little bit for their later years in junior’s and men’s.”

Solberg added that overall, “It was great. It was fun. Everyone looked like they were having lots of fun out curling, so that’s the most important part of this. It was great to be here.”

Clarence Jack was playing for the Stuart rink. He turned 84 Saturday. Jack has been playing since the age of 13. “Great ice. Good game. It’s good.”

The Women’s A final wasn’t so close. Team MIAL (Computech Embroidery) dominated Team Dorosz.

Team MIAL (Missing in Action Laini) skip Lorna Spenner said, “It’s awesome. We’re a fairly new team this year and we’ve been curling well, so it’s awesome to win the International.

“It was really fun. We had some really close games … the whole thing was fun. It’s always a great event to be at.”

Also on the team were lead Laura Williamson, second Laura Wilson and third Tamar Vandenberghe.

Laini Klassen, who was away on a vacation, was featured on the ladies’ shirts, which also had a St. Patty’s Day theme.

Team Dorosz consisted of third Kandace Braga, second Glenna Shephard, and lead Eileen Burke. Skip Peggy Dorosz couldn’t play on Sunday, so Hailey Bernie filled in for her.

“It went really well,” said Shephard. “Two early games yesterday that we won, a tough loss last night, close game, really good win this morning and then a close one this afternoon; loss this afternoon but second place, we’re pretty happy overall.”

Braga added “A good end to the season.”

The mixed game also came down to the last rock. The Sushi Bombers, down 5-3 after seven ends, were counting two, but Benny and the Jets skip Patty Wallingham made a perfect draw to make the final 6-3 for her rink.

The Star spoke to Wallingham after her big victory.

“It feels really good. That was a really fun game. We met these guys twice. They beat us the first time. It was a really well-played game by, I think both of us. We were both making good shots. They were putting us in some tough places, some runbacks and stuff, so that’s never easy. It was a really good game.

“It took us a couple games just to find our flow and we thought if we feel like changing it up the second game, we might do that but we just kept going with it.”

The Wallingham rink consisted of lead Colton Jarvis, second Ben Robinson, third Chelsea Jarvis and skip Wallingham.

“It was really fun to play with Chelsea again and Colton and having our partners out there. Ben, too, they swept their butts off for us, so always good.”

The Sushi Bombers, from Japan, added international flair to the bonspiel. They were lead Aya Takayama, second Ryota Kubo, third Kei Takayama and skip Tetsuya Hayashi.

When asked how they ended up in the Yukon, Kei Takayama replied, “The biggest reason is to get the permanent residency up here. And then we ended up staying longer and longer and we started curling about six years ago.”

As for the bonspiel, Kei said it went, “so good. Lots of fun. We curled with this team twice and it was really fun. They’re so respectful and very skillful; a lot of things to learn from them too. So much fun.”