Top-four seeds cruise to opening-day wins

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This article was published 01/02/2018 (3117 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINKLER — Two-time defending champion Mike McEwen fell behind early in his opening game at the provincial men’s curling championship but rebounded to post a 9-2 victory over St. Vital’s Merv Satterthwaite at the Centennial Arena Wednesday night.

McEwen and his Fort Rouge foursome fell behind 2-0 after the first end but pulled even by the fourth and posted five in the fifth and two more in the sixth before the teams shook hands.

“Not the ideal start, obviously, but they had the hammer,” said third B.J. Neufeld, standing in for an ailing McEwen for a post-game interview. “They made a couple of good shots and we had some opportunities there to force them and we were just a little bit loose in that first end and they got the deuce after that. I mean, it’s such a long game after that.”

McEwen’s flu-like symptoms are cause for concern.

“I guess we’ve been involved in events where we’ve been a little bit under the weather and it’s tough to grind through it, keep the energy up, and it’s a little bit harder to focus and catch on to all those little things that make such a big difference in our games,” said Neufeld, whose team faces Pinawa’s Richard Muntain in today’s 12:15 p.m. draw. “But, everybody has to go through that and it’s up to us to support him and help him out where he needs help until he gets back to 100 per cent.”

In other notable opening-day games: No. 2 seed Reid Carruthers of West St. Paul took seven ends to beat Dauphin’s Rob Fisher 8-1; No. 3 Jason Gunnlaugson of Granite beat Burntwood’s Travis Graham 11-2; No. 4 Pat Simmons beat Swan River’s Brandon Radford 10-2; and No. 5 William Lyburn of Assiniboine Memorial edged Elmwood’s Brett Walter 8-7.

HE’S A TRADITIONALIST: Brier veteran Pat Simmons is hoping the expansion of the national championship from 12 to 16 teams and the adoption of a wild-card play-in game won’t spoil the grand tradition of the event.

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“I like it because it’s the Brier, right? And that’s the thing for me, when I grew up, that’s the thing I wanted to win and I dreamt about,” said Simmons. “Your last shots in practice were to win the Brier. I’m a bit of a traditionalist in the sense that I loved it the way it was. Not to say this is going to be bad. I’m not going to say it’s going to be bad.

“Until you get there and actually experience it, you can’t really speak to it too much. I’ve never been the biggest fan of more than one pool of teams with a round robin because they typically don’t even out. That’s pretty common for provincials… I just hope the tradition and integrity of the Brier never changes.”

RAVE REVIEWS: Team Simmons second Kyle Doering said playing conditions at Centennial Arena, which is serving as host of the provincial men’s championship for the first time, were superb Wednesday.

“It’s really really nice to see the ice like that from the first draw, to have the speed 14 1/2 to 15 seconds consistently was fantastic,” said Doering. “You couldn’t ask for anything better.”

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