Mike McEwen’s foursome nabs playoff spot in Grand Slam event

Posted: 8:35 AM CDT Saturday, Mar. 17, 2018

Mike McEwen's curling team is showing its intention to go out with a roar and not a whimper.

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Mike McEwen's curling team is showing its intention to go out with a roar and not a whimper.

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This article was published 17/03/2018 (3102 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mike McEwen’s curling team is showing its intention to go out with a roar and not a whimper.

The Winnipeg men’s foursome won four straight games the past 48 hours at the Elite 10 to book a spot in today’s playoffs of the Grand Slam event happening here in their hometown.

On Thursday, McEwen defeated Kevin Koe of Calgary and Jason Gunnlaugson of Winnipeg, then followed up with back-to-back victories Friday over Olympic gold medallists Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste Marie, Ont. (who won gold in Sochi in 2014) and Minnesota’s John Shuster (who just captured gold in PyeongChang) at the St. James Civic Centre.

Mike McEwen's foursome won four straight games to book a spot in today's playoffs. (Andrew Vaughan / Canadian Press files)

McEwen, with third B.J. Neufeld, second Matt Wozniak and lead Denni Neufeld, moved all the way to the semi-finals of the big-money bonspiel, one of their last events together. The team recently announced plans to break up at the end of the curling season.

Koe’s team is also into the semi-finals, posting just the one loss to go with three wins so far this weekend.

The Elite 10 uses a unique format, combining some of the regular rules of curling with a few wrinkles.

The bonspiel, which offers $20,000 to the winning team, uses a match-play, skins format, which means a team that either scores multiple points with the hammer or steals at least one point without the hammer wins the end. The squad that takes the most ends wins the eight-end game. A five-rock free guard zone is also being used.

Four teams will play quarter-final matchups this afternoon prior to the semifinals. Glenn Howard from Islington, Ont., will play Jacobs, with the winner playing Koe.

Recent Brier national men’s champion Brad Gushue is also in a quarter-final but must wait to find out who wins a tie-breaker at 8:30 a.m. between Olympic silver medallist Niklas Edin of Sweden and John Epping of Toronto.

The quarter-finals are at noon, and the semi-finals are scheduled for 4 p.m., while the Elite 10 final is Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. Draws are being televised on Sportsnet.

Gunnlaugson and West St. Paul’s Reid Carruthers did not make the playoffs.

— Staff