Lucas Punkari
As the anglers and fans milled about the Ice For Kids Arena following the crowning of Richard Rud/Jon Austin and Glenn Leroux/Trevor Zimak as co-champs of the 2011 Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship, first-year chairman Gord Watson finally was able to relax just a little bit.
“It was a high-stress week,” admitted Watson, who took over the role of chairman from Tom Fry last fall.
“But if you go and look at the week from the ‘KidPro’ to the weigh-ins, we had phenomenal turnouts and I couldn’t ask for anything more, especially when you see the crowds tonight [Saturday] as we had 500-600 people here easy,” he added.
“It was a tremendous week.”
During the course of the tournament weekend, a few different scenarios kept Watson on his toes. But none moreso than the tie atop of the leaderboard as the event came to its conclusion Saturday.
“I’m not a very stressful guy so I didn’t stress out too much, but the tie-breaker was certainly the most stressful thing of the entire tournament,” he noted.
“When you have that many people here with that situation on your hands, which was unprecedented in the history of the tournament, you certainly have a lot of eyes starting at you at that point.
“I think the hot seat should have been on the chairman this year instead of the anglers,” Watson smiled.
Another interesting situation Watson had to deal with came Saturday morning as the anglers headed out to face rough conditions on Rainy Lake.
“Our number-one concern throughout the day was the safety of the anglers,” he stressed.
“We need to have these guys back here next year, and the bottom line is that we couldn’t have an accident out there on the water.
“The anglers were happy with all of the precautions that we took and nobody complained,” Watson added.
“It might have taken a little bit longer to get everyone on and off of the water, but everyone was safe and that was the most important thing for us.”
One of the big things heading into the tournament was the new prize format for this year’s edition of the FFCBC, which saw three separate flights head out Saturday morning in search of prize money.
And with many of the anglers in the bottom two flights enjoying the benefits of the new format, it seemed as if the it went over quite well with the competitors.
“This year’s tournament was very well-received, though there is still a couple of bugs that need to be worked out with it being a new format,” Watson admitted.
“[Master of ceremonies] Paul Morrison did a great job for us on the stage, and he helped clear things up a couple of times, so he did a really good job in telling the audience what was going on.”
Watson, who stated that he would wait and see how a meeting with the tournament committee in a couple weeks’ time went before making a decision about coming back next year, also was quick to thank the FFCBC board for their help during the last few months.
“When you see the amount of help that I had, it was just phenomenal,” he enthused.
“Everyone on the board is just a quality individual, and I’m so grateful for them in helping to make me look good.”
