Dunstone sneaks into men’s semifinal at Olympic curling trials

HALIFAX — Matt Dunstone missing the playoffs seemed unfathomable on Monday.

The Winnipeg skip had just outlasted Brad Gushue in a 9-7 nailbiter to become the only men’s team at the Canadian Curling Trials in Halifax to own a perfect 4-0 record.

“We put ourselves in the driver’s seat,” said Dunstone at the time.

They hit a speed bump Tuesday afternoon when Kevin Koe turned back the clock and made a triple takeout to steal a 5-4 win.

Dunstone, third Colton Lott, second E.J. Harnden, and lead Ryan Harnden then followed that up by getting a chip in their windshield Wednesday morning in a 6-2 loss to Brad Jacobs.

The back-to-back losses meant Dunstone — the No. 2-ranked team in the world behind Scotland’s Bruce Mouat — needed to beat Mike McEwen late Wednesday or have both Gushue and Koe lose their final round robin games in order to secure one of the three playoff positions.

They controlled their own fate until they veered off the road entirely against McEwen. The veteran McEwen, a fellow Winnipegger who now curls out of Saskatchewan, scored a triple in the second and again in the fifth en route to a commanding 9-5 win.

As a frustrated Dunstone walked through the curtain to the locker room, his status remained up in the air as Koe and Gushue were both still on the ice.

“We had three chances to qualify and get through and we didn’t,” said Dunstone.

“Do we necessarily deserve a chance at this point? A lot could argue no, and it would be hard for me to argue back at them.”

Deserving or not, when the dust settled, Dunstone grabbed the No. 3 seed by the skin of his teeth. Rylan Kleiter smacked Koe 8-3, which then left Gushue who made things interesting with a chance to beat Jacobs with his final shot. Fortunately for Dunstone, Gushue misfired on a triple takeout to give Jacobs a 6-3 victory.

Dunstone (4-3) and McEwen (5-2) will have a rematch in the semifinal at 5 p.m. CT. The winner moves on to meet Jacobs (6-1) in a best-of-three series to decide who will represent Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around what transpired,” Dunstone told the Free Press after finding out he was playoff bound.

“Obviously, I feel very fortunate and a little lucky to have this opportunity. That’s kind of how it is. Now we’re playing with house money. We’re on a difficult little stretch but the curling gods looked out for us today and I think you’re going to see a team that wants to come out and obviously take advantage of that opportunity and leave it all out there.”

It’s a different story for McEwen who stumbled out of the gate to a 1-2 start before rattling off wins against Koe, Kleiter, Gushue and Dunstone.

McEwen had lost his previous three showdowns against Dunstone and was 8-17 against him all-time heading into Wednesday.

Now the 45-year-old is one win away from making it back to the finals at the trials — a stage he reached in 2017 where he lost a 7-6 heartbreaker to Koe.

“We just had to take it one mile at a time. It wasn’t the start we wanted. We definitely saw ourselves at least going 2-1 through the opening three games. It was nice, we had a couple games against Koe and Kleiter, got some confidence, started seeing the ice better, and then, of course, today against the favourites, the guys played really great in front of me,” said McEwen.

“That was a big game for us, a good confidence booster going into (the semis). It’s just nice to finally break that bad streak against Dunstone. He’s really had our number for the last year and a half.”

That left the crowd favourite, Gushue, as the odd man out. Since Dunstone prevailed in their meeting earlier in the week, the tiebreaker went to the 30-year-old Manitoban.

Gushue, who won this event in 2005 and 2021, came close but ran out of magic at the end. This is his final trials appearance as the 45-year-old from St. John’s, N.L., is retiring at the end of the season.

“I would love to be playing (Thursday) or Friday but there’s a few better teams here this week that probably deserve it more,” said Gushue.

“We have a lot of talent on this team, a lot of experience, so that bodes well going into the Brier if we can clean up some stuff and just get a little bit better. I really felt like we gave ourselves a chance this week. The games that we lost we could have easily won with a shot here or there. It just wasn’t meant to be this week. I think that last shot was probably an epitome of it. I threw it well and I just didn’t make it. Man, it’s frustrating.”

Jacobs now gets to sit back and wait. Game 1 of the men’s final goes down Friday at 5:30 p.m. CT.

Jacobs is in familiar territory as he won the trials in 2013 and finished as a runner-up in 2021. The only difference now is he’ll have to win twice to once again wear the maple leaf.

“We haven’t really talked about (the new format). I’m sure we’re going to talk a little bit about it over the next couple days,” said Jacobs. “I think what we’re most excited for is the fact that we can rest up now that we don’t play for a little while and see how the semifinal goes and how the ice reacts in the playoffs… We’ll have some good conversations and just be refreshed and ready to go for the finals.”

Jacobs has won six in a row since dropping their first game 6-5 to Koe. Confidence is high after knocking out one of the greatest curlers the sport has ever seen.

“(Gushue) can be lethal. He’s been that way the majority of the last 10 years,” said Jacobs. “Any time you have an opportunity to eliminate a great team like that, you’ve got to take advantage of that opportunity.”

Einarson in the mix

On the women’ side, Rachel Homan punched her ticket to the by edging Gimli’s Kerri Einarson on Wednesday to clinch first in the women’s round-robin.

The two rinks finished the preliminary round with 6-1 records, but Homan earned the direct path to the best-of-three final with the head-to-head win.

“That was our goal at the beginning of the week,” said Homan. “The field is so tough that we needed everything today to make it to that final and I’m really proud of the girls for battling through.

“(It’s) huge. There’s no other way to say it. It’s a big game for us to get into the final and get a bit of rest (Thursday), get on the ice for a bit and then more of the same looking forward to the weekend.”

Homan scored two in the eighth for a 7-4 advantage before Einarson countered with singles in each of the final two ends.

Einarson will face hometown favourite Christina Black in today’s semifinal. The final starts Friday.

Black scored three in the 10th end for a 10-6 victory over Kate Cameron of St. Adolphe to finish tied for third at 4-2 with Winnipeg’s Kaitlyn Lawes and Edmonton’s Selena Sturmay. She moved on to the semifinal by having the best cumulative last stone draw ranking of the three teams.

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— With Canadian Press files