‘Lot full’ — must be Curling Night in Kamloops

SPORTS — ‘Lot full’ signs were everywhere. Latecomers streamed across the Third Avenue walkway. Inside the ISC, Coyote Jack’s was struggling to keep up with orders for burgers and beer.

Every few seconds, a roar went up from the crowd as “the wave” made its circle in the stands.

It was Curling Night in Kamloops.

If the place had been this full, this energetic earlier in the week, there would be no talk about this being the last Brier ever to come to Kamloops.

Hometown boy “Jimmy” Cotter and his skip John Morris and team were taking on Alberta’s Kevin Koe in the 1-2 Page.

There was no doubt as to the crowd favourite, but this wasn’t the Olympics — these people know their curling. Whenever Koe made a great shot — and he made quite a few — he received appreciative cheers and applause.

Whenever Cotter, who throws fourth stones for Morris, made a great shot — and he made a few more than Koe — the cheers and applause were just a bit louder.

Alberta was never really in the game. When Cotter made a couple of unbelievable double takeouts early on, and B.C. cracked a three-ender in the fourth, it seemed like it was all over.

But Koe wouldn’t give up. He crawled back from a 6-1 deficit to make a decent game of it, though B.C. would have had to make a lot more mistakes than it did to give this one away.

When Cotter threw a perfect last-stone draw to the button in the ninth to negate a really special double takeout by Koe, they shook hands.

The scoreboard read 9-5.

The happy crowd streamed out to the Brier Patch for their post mortems, or uptown in search of their vehicles. CP Rail, of course, timed it perfectly, creating a pedestrian traffic jam as a long double-locomotive train roared across Third.

Victoria Street was unusually lively for a Friday night, but in a friendly, celebratory way. At Boston Pizza, multiple TV screens were showing the NHL.

Back at the ISC, Morris was telling Tim Hortons Brier reporter John Korobanik how it felt. “Such a great vibe in here,” he said. “Jimmy being the hometown boy, such a great vibe and something special to be part of.”

Morris-Cotter, with second Tyrel Griffith and lead Rick Sawatsky, move into Sunday’s final, while Koe has to try again in today’s (Saturday’s) semifinal against whoever wins the 3-4 game at 1:30 between Quebec and Manitoba. The semi goes at 6:30 p.m.

Today and Sunday will be full houses at the barn again, and Coyote Jack’s will be doing another roaring business, if you’ll excuse the curling pun.