After guiding his Alberta rink to a Canadian mixed curling championship title, Dean Ross had tears of joy in his eyes.

"It's always nice to win a national," said an emotional Ross following a narrow 5-4 win over Bob Turcotte and Team Ontario in Friday afternoon's final at the Calgary Curling Club. "It's my first one. It's nice to win around family and friends. We appreciated everyone who came out and cheered us on."

Ross, third Susan O'Connor, second Tim Krassman and lead Susan Wright earned the bye into Friday's final by virtue of their 10-1 record to top the round-robin standings. 

"We kept focus all week," said Ross, noting he had to make some clutch late shots in several games. "A lot of these games could have went the other way pretty easily. We had probably seven games that went down to the last shot. We very easily could have been 7-5."

After finishing the round robin at 8-3, Turcotte led his rink of third Kristin Turcotte, second Roy Weigand and lead Andrea Lawes to an 11-5 win over Team Nova Scotia skipped by Peter Burgess in Thursday's semifinal.

Ross stole two in the fourth, then held a comfortable 4-1 lead over Turcotte, before the Ontario skip scored two in the third and stole one in the eighth to tie the affair. After drawing to the button with his first shot, Turcotte froze his next rock right up against the other one, forcing Ross to try a double takeout.