Can McEwen win Manitoba?

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This article was published 09/02/2011 (5571 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BEAUSEJOUR — One world championship. Two Canadian championships. Eight provincial championships — including four of the last five and the last two.

And still Jeff Stoughton is the underdog.

The curling world is a strange and exciting place these days and it will play out here at the Manitoba men’s curling championship beginning today as Stoughton, the winningest curler in the long and glorious curling history of this province, faces a challenger so formidable that he’s actually the favourite.

Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen has never so much as won a single Manitoba men’s title and yet he will come in here today for the first day of the Safeway Championship as the top seed and the team to be beat.

With a remarkable cashspiel season under his belt that included two Grand Slam titles, there is a case to be made that the McEwen foursome — with brothers B.J. and Denny Neufeld at third and lead and second Matt Wozniak — might just be the best team in the world right now.

But are they the best team in Manitoba? Funny question, on the surface. And yet until they have beaten the best this province has to offer — and that is undeniably Stoughton — the question lingers.

It is one thing to win on the cashspiel circuit, where the prize is money. It is quite another to win a provincial championship, where first place is the right to represent your province at the Brier and second place is absolutely nothing.

No one, ever, has been better at that latter category than Stoughton. Consider: Stoughton has played in 13 of the last 15 Manitoba men’s championships (the only two he missed representing the years he took part in a players’ boycott of the playdowns).

Of those 13 provincials, Stoughton has made the final nine times. And he has won an astonishing eight of those finals, the only blemish coming in 2004 in an incomprehensible upset to Swan River’s Brent Scales.

That is a superlative record under pressure and suggestive that for all the talk of a simultaneous coronation and coming-out party for McEwen here this week, there might yet be a little bite left in the old dog.

And he seems to know it. Stoughton, lead Steve Gould and second Reid Carruthers — third Jon Mead never showed up — spent much of their practice time Tuesday at the Sun Gro Centre laughing and joking and looking a lot looser than McEwen, who had a full team on the ice, plus a coach, in a very regimented practice.

But while he looked loose, Stoughton said afterward that even after all these years, he feels the pressure at this event like no other.

“This is a very different event than a cashspiel,” Stoughton said, “because there’s no second place. There is no prize money for finishing second at this thing.

“And that’s why it’s so hard to win.”

Perhaps for that reason, McEwen was choosing his words carefully when asked to assess his team’s chances this week.

“If we keep playing the way we have been this season,” the skip ventured, “the odds are pretty good that we’ll have a good shot at winning.”

Here’s how I break down the field this week:

— THE FAVOURITES: Jeff Stoughton, Mike McEwen

Stoughton beat McEwen in the final of this event last year and then again in October at an early-season cashspiel.

But since then, McEwen has dominated the champion in four head-to-head matchups, beating Stoughton in the final of a major cash event in Portage la Prairie, the final of a Grand Slam event, the semifinal of another Grand Slam event and at the Canada Cup.

That’s not only dominating, that’s dominating on some of the biggest stages.

— THE CONTENDER: Rob Fowler

Fowler has had a roller-coaster year, excelling on the cash circuit but then struggling to get his provincials spot before bouncing again with a playoff run at the last Grand Slam event. Fowler won the last two Manitoba titles as second for Stoughton and knows what it takes.

The question is does he have what it takes as a skip.

— THE DARK HORSE: Dave Elias

Elias once again has slapped together a blue-collar bunch of proven winners, reuniting with third Chris Suchy and lead Shane Kilgallen — with whom he previously won a Manitoba men’s title — and adding second Hub Perrin to the mix. None of them are flashy, none are likely bound for any hall of fame. But three of four are proven winners who seem to rise to the occasion at this event.

“Obviously there’s two of the toughest teams in the world here,” says Suchy, “and then the rest of us. I think it’d be good for all of us weekend curlers if someone knocked them off. And I’m hoping it’s us.”

— THE PACK: Garth Smith, Vic Peters, Dave Boehmer, David Bohn, Peter Nicholls, Sean Grassie

Smith won the 2008 Manitoba title with Kerry Burntyk and has a very experienced team; Peters is a Brier winner and has a great pure shooter in son Daley throwing last rock; Boehmer won the MCA Bonspiel and could get hot; Bohn lost the 2008 Manitoba final to Burtnyk and always seems to rise to this occasion; Nicholls, with last rock Dean Dunstone, always factors in this event; and Grassie has a Manitoba junior title, a Canadian mixed title and the best cashspiel record of any of this bunch this winter.

Anything is possible, but it’d be a stretch. “There’s no pressure on us,” says Smith. “Pressure for me is making a sales quota. This is fun.”

— THE LONG SHOTS: Dean North, Scott Madams, Rob Atkins, Andy Stewart, Ryan Hyde, Perry Fisher, Rob Ramage, Terry McNamee, Graham Freeman, Brent Strachan, Roger Parker, Brent Scales, Don Holmes, Travis Graham, Randy Dutiaume, Bob Sigurdson, Greg Todoruk, William Lyburn, David Hamblin, Troy Hamilton, Barrie Sigurdson, Randy Neufeld

Dutiaume won a Manitoba title with a memorable run in 2005, Hamblin is a former world junior champion, McNamee’s a good mixed curler and Willie Lyburn is a good curler period.

But they’re the best of this bunch and this bunch isn’t going to win anything this week.

— PREDICTION: Chelsea Carey went into the Manitoba Scotties last month off a dominating cash season that saw her own the veteran Cathy Overton-Clapham. It had all the makings of a changing of the guard. And we all know how that turned out.

This thing sets up almost exactly the same way. It’s hard to see how this doesn’t end up with Stoughton and McEwen in the final. I picked the upstart to win the final in the Scotties and got burned. I’m not making that mistake again. McEwen will win many, many provincial titles for this province over the years to come. Probably a Brier or two, too. But it won’t be this year. I’m going with Stoughton.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca