Winless Koe can’t explain disastrous performance

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/03/2015 (4082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CALGARY — At the 2015 Tim Hortons Brier, the Northwest Territories turned back into just another hapless team from the north.

N.W.T. skip Jamie Koe, who just three years ago stunned everyone but himself by taking his northern team to the Brier playoffs with a record of 7-4, is 0-10 heading into the final round-robin draw this morning at Scotiabank Saddledome.

Koe plays Ontario in his final game and he’d desperately like to avoid joining the handful of teams to have gone winless at the Brier over the years.

But while he could salvage a little pride today, Koe has already lost the larger battle in play this week — regardless of what the Territories does today, they will be relegated at next year’s Brier and have to win a four-team pre-event playoff if they’re going to play in next year’s Brier round robin.

That’s a path that is hard and getting harder — and a precipitous fall for a team that just a few years ago was playing on the final weekend of the Brier.

Koe was at a loss to explain how it all went so badly.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I was just sitting on the bench talking about it and we’re trying to figure it out. We just weren’t prepared and we’re trying to figure out why we’re so far off. It’s hard to put a finger on it right now.”

With N.W.T.’s participation in next year’s full Brier no longer guaranteed, Koe says he’s not sure if he will even compete to come back next year as the skip of N.W.T.’s entry.

“We’ll see… curling is always our third priority behind family and work,” said Koe. “It’s a lot of work to play two or three games if things don’t go well and then you’re on your way back home…

“We’re pretty disappointed right now, so it’s hard to say. Right now, I’d probably say no, but in a month or so I might say yes.”

•••

Ontario’s 8-7 win over Manitoba Thursday afternoon snapped what had been a five-game losing streak for a young foursome that was making its rookie appearance at the Brier this week.

That five-game losing streak came after what was a promising 2-1 start for Ontario — and it began with a much talked about loss to Northern Ontario during which Ontario third Mat Camm was struck by a Northern Ontario broom as part of a dispute between the two teams over the Ontario players kneeling on the ice.

The timing raised the obvious question Thursday — did all the controversy that surrounded the ‘Broomgate’ episode (Ontario protested the loss to Northern Ontario to Curling Canada to no avail) throw the young Ontario team off their game?

“I honestly don’t think the two things are connected at all,” said skip Mark Kean.

“I don’t think that affected us at all. Really, we just had some close games that we could have won. And maybe if we’d had the experience of having been here before, we would have made that one or two extra shots in the seventh, eighth, ninth ends and got a few more wins and have a better record today.”

•••

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The weather forecast for championship weekend in Calgary could make for some interesting ice conditions inside the Scotiabank Saddledome.

After a week that has been mostly unseasonably cold, temperatures this weekend are expected to warm — and curvy ice conditions is usually the result of that.

The forecast highs for Calgary are 11 C for today, 8 C for Saturday and 12 C for Sunday.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek