Murray Wood: Who's hot and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look at the week's news and decides who's hot and who's not. This week's list includes...
Mike McEwen and his Saskatchewan teammates not only remained perfect on the weekend, but they also passed two of their biggest tests in the round-robin.
On Sunday at the 2024 Montana’s Brier, Saskatchewan knocked off Alberta and four-time Brier champion Kevin Koe with a 6-5 decision. That came after a 7-6 victory over Team Canada’s Brad Gushue on Saturday.
“In this format, every win — especially against a seeded team like Kevin Koe — it’s big. We’re one step and a little bit closer to try to get into the top two positions,” McEwen said after Sunday’s game at the Brandt Centre. “There’s not a lot of room for error in an eight-game round-robin situation. The difference between finishing fourth and third is not very much.
“Our goal is to try to make the top two in our pool, so (it was a) great opening weekend.”
The game Sunday came down to the final stone thrown by McEwen, whose double takeout did just enough to clear out both of Koe’s rocks and leave McEwen’s shooter there for the score. That gave a crowd at the Brandt Centre who braved the elements a reason to let out a thunderous roar.
“I knew I had a little bit of a margin of error tight and I used all of it — every single little bit,” McEwen said. “That was our plan — to throw that shot with sweeping versus watching it on the wide side and not being able to do anything.
“I just used every little bit of the margin of error that I had and thank goodness Colton (Flasch) held it for me.”
Saskatchewan now has a 3-0 record and remains in the driver’s seat in Pool B.
After big wins against two of the top teams at the Canadian men’s curling championship, McEwen hopes his team can continue this momentum the rest of the tournament.
“I think it shows what we are capable of. We can definitely hang with these teams and it’s a long week ahead of us,” McEwen said. “It doesn’t matter who you’re stepping out (against) — we saw P.E.I. take us to a last shot in a victory on Friday night.
“I’m not taking anyone for granted and there’s a long way to go. What a great opening weekend. I would have taken 2-1 out of this opening weekend, so 3-0 (is) even better.”
McEwen put the pressure on Koe early in the game, stealing a point in the second end to get on the scoreboard first. But Koe got a deuce the next end.
McEwen, who made a number of great shots in Saturday night’s victory over Gushue, continued to have a hot hand in this game.
After Koe made a double, McEwen answered with his own to score two in the fourth. Koe got another two in the sixth with an open hit.
In the eighth end, McEwen had an open draw to get two right back.
In the ninth, McEwen was able to freeze right up to a Koe rock, which forced a draw for one from the Alberta skip.
There were blanks in the first, fifth and seventh ends.
In the morning draw, Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher moved to 2-0 after a 8-3 win over the Yukon’s Thomas Scoffin, Trevor Bonot and Northern Ontario defeated Newfoundland and Labrador’s Andrew Symonds 7-6, Manitoba’s Reid Carruthers beat Ontario’s Scott Howard 7-6, and Matt Dunstone’s Manitoba rink beat B.C.’s Catlin Schneider 8-5.
In the other games in the afternoon draw, Gushue beat Julien Tremblay of Quebec 9-7, the Northwest Territories’ Jamie Koe downed Nova Scotia’s Matthew Manuel 8-7, and Alberta’s Aaron Sluchinski defeated Nunavut’s Shane Latimer 12-10 after being down 5-1 after three ends.
Saskatchewan (3-0) is next in action on Monday at 7 p.m. against Nova Scotia.
