Young turks look to oust old guard at provincials

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This article was published 05/02/2010 (6054 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ALL good things come to an end, so will this be the year that the old guard of Jeff Stoughton of Charleswood and Kerry Burtnyk of Assiniboine Memorial will be forced aside by younger blood at the Safeway provincial men’s curling championship?

Stoughton, the defending champion, two-time Canadian champion and 1996 world champion, will be going after his eighth provincial title Feb. 10-14 when 32 teams begin throwing rocks in earnest at the TG Smith Centre in Steinbach. Burtnyk, a two-time Canadian champion and 1995 world champion, is going after his fifth provincial title.

Stoughton and Burtnyk are seeded first and third, respectively. Rounding out the top five are Assiniboine Memorial’s Mike McEwen (second), Reid Carruthers of West St. Paul (fourth) and Beausejour’s Jason Gunnlaugson (fifth). Any of those three younger rinks possesses what it takes to win the whole shootout.

"There’s no doubt," Stoughton said Thursday by phone. "Everyone wants to win. They are going to do their best, but we don’t worry about any of the other teams; we only worry about ourselves, and that is the approach that we have always taken. We’ll have to play up to our potential."

Delighted to be seeded above Burtnyk, McEwen agreed the No. 1 slot still belonged to Stoughton. "Jeff’s shown that he’s had such good finishes, whether in the Brier or Olympic Trials, and he is the defending champion. He deserves to be No. 1.

As for his seeding above Burtnyk: "Kerry has so much experience that you could make an argument either way. I think, though, that through our performance the last couple of seasons, we have put up the numbers to be seeded second."

Gunnlaugson was pleased with fifth seeding.

"It’s definitely flattering for a first-year skip and a new team (third Justin Richter, second Baden Zawada and third Tyler Forrest) to be seeded that high," he said. "I’m sure there is pressure. We definitely want to make the top eight, and then from there to play as well as we can and hopefully win the whole thing."

Regardless, anyone in the top 16 seedings, including McEwen and his team of third B.J. Neufeld, second Matt Wozniak and third Denni Neufeld, have got their work cut out for them.

"We’ve been pretty consistent all year," McEwen said. "We’re one of those teams that seems to make the playoffs quite a bit, so we’re hoping for a deep performance in Steinbach."

To win the provincial title, McEwen says they’ll require mental strength as well as physical skill.

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"It’s that mental edge," he said of Stoughton and Burtnyk. "Been there, done that — they keep so calm under pressure, and that is something that we are learning as a team, and I think that the other young guys are as well. That’s kind of the edge that they’ve had in the past.

"They just rise to the occasion under pressure, and I think that’s something that’s not necessarily gifted to you. I think you have to learn that and be able to do that day in and day out. These guys have been doing it for the last decade or more. They’ve had a mental edge on the rest of the field for quite a long time and it’s hard to break through that."

In the first round next Wednesday, Stoughton and his crew play Fort Rouge’s Jim Kirkness at 4 p.m., Burtnyk and his team hit the ice at 12:15 p.m. against Springfield’s Kevin Larson, and McEwen plays Curtis McCannell in the 8:30 a.m., draw.

Draw times are 8:30 a.m., 12:15 p.m., 4 p.m., and 8:15 p.m.

allan.besson@freepress.mb.ca