McEwen going for provincial three-peat

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/01/2018 (3120 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINKLER — Mike McEwen has won consecutive provincial men’s curling titles, and he’s hoping to make it three straight.

To that end, the 37-year-old Fort Rouge skip has been careful to fine-tune all the details, which includes making good on a pre-event superstition.

McEwen was notably absent from last week’s media conference to unveil the top five seeds for the Viterra Championship. It was very deliberate. Third B.J. Neufeld was sent as team spokesman.

Why? Well, after reaching and losing five finals and one semifinal in six trips to the provincials, McEwen and crew finally broke through in 2016 — when their skip was a no-show at the presser.

“This was the third one I haven’t been at, and the last two seemed to work out,” said McEwen, sporting a wide grin after his team’s practice session at Winkler’s Centennial Arena on Tuesday afternoon.

“The first one, the guys just said it’s time for a change. And then we won. And then they’re like, ‘Well, you’re just not doing it anymore.’”

Will the pattern continue?

“It is now, especially if we happen to do well again here,” second Matt Wozniak said. “He certainly won’t be going next year… I think after losing five times you should maybe make a change somewhere. That was the change and we won. And last year, I was there. This year, it’s like, ‘OK, maybe that’s they key’ — him staying home.”

McEwen adheres to a few other quirks, but it’s clear his team is confident and loose.

“Not crazy stuff,” McEwen said. “If you lose a game, you’ve got to change your shirt. Maybe socks, too. Stuff like that. Nothing too out of the ordinary.”

The McEwen quartet is favoured and seeded No. 1 at this week’s event, which kicks off this morning and continues through Sunday. A third-consecutive provincial crown would equal a mark set by Jeff Stoughton, who won in 2009, 2010 and 2011 among his 11 Manitoba titles, which is also a record.

McEwen, who takes on St. Vital’s Merv Satterthwaite in today’s 4 p.m. draw, admitted he wasn’t feeling well.

“I’m under the weather — I wouldn’t get too close,” said McEwen, warning a group of reporters. “But otherwise I feel pretty relaxed and calm. Just my energy level is a bit low right now. Hopefully I can play my way into this thing.”

McEwen and his team, which also includes lead Denni Neufeld, are in the middle of a superb season. They currently lead the Canadian Team Ranking System standings and came within a whisker of representing Canada at the Pyeongchang Olympics, falling 7-6 to Kevin Koe in the Olympic trials final on Dec. 10.

Time has helped McEwen get over the gut-wrenching disappointment of losing at the trials.

“It feels like it was a while ago,” McEwen said. “I don’t dwell on it really too much, so, yeah, I don’t think it’s affected how we’ve prepared and approached going on to the next thing. We’ve had a pretty good January so far. We’re excited to try to defend this thing again. I think you could say it’s a fact that it’s the hardest province to win, and I think we’re excited to try and make it three (in a row).”

Wozniak said his team is highly motivated and eager to get another crack at the Brier, where they have reached the playoffs both times without winning a Canadian championship. After years of chasing the best teams, they enter events such as these now as the foursome to beat.

“I’d say maybe it’s less pressure than before,” Wozniak said. “We want nothing more than to get back to the Brier. We had a pretty big disappointment at the Olympic trials, so getting back to the Brier was a huge goal of ours from the start of the year. We want nothing more than to win this event.”

Added McEwen: “We’ve had two good runs (at the Brier) and didn’t do as well in the playoffs as we would’ve liked, but we had two real good round robins and had a good record. There’s a big learning experience on just preparation and energy levels and game management that we kind of slipped up on a couple of times in the playoffs. If we were to get a third crack at a Brier playoff, I would like to think we would do everything right behind the scenes before the games start. We wouldn’t be causing our own downfall.

McEwen likes the format in Winkler, confident he can focus exclusively on curling.

“The nice thing is it’s one game a day, at least for the first couple of days, likely,” he said. “My parenting duties are done for a little bit. I can just focus on this, get lots of rest and hopefully play well in the first couple of games. If anything, focus gets dialled in now that I’m here. There was a lot of stuff going on — (wife) Dawn’s team is in Penticton (at the national Tournament of Hearts).

“I guess that’s life. Everybody’s got stuff to juggle. And it’s nice that when you come here as a competitor, our team has everything set up so well that we can put a lot of focus in.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @sawa14