Burtnyk opens with victory, wary of young talent

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This article was published 10/02/2010 (5904 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

STEINBACH — As he launched his attempt to win a fifth Safeway Provincial Men’s Curling Championship with a 7-3 win over Springfield’s Kevin Larson Wednesday afternoon, Kerry Burtnyk acknowledged that he could feel the wave of young curlers breathing down his neck.

“I’ve certainly felt them breathing down my neck for quite a while actually,” said the Assiniboine Memorial skip. “Every year the same kind of stories come up, and you know, at some point in time that story is going to be a bigger story. Is it this year? I really don’t know.”

Other second-round games saw Dauphin’s Peter Prokopowich defeat David Bohn of Assiniboine 9-7, Sean Grassie of Deer Lodge beat Morris’s David Hamblin 10-8, Doug Riach of West Kildonan beat Randy Neufeld of LaSalle 9-6, and Reid Carruthers of West St. Paul beat Heather’s Andrew Irving 5-4.

Burtnyk, a two-time Canadian champion, who is seeded third here this week, tipped his hat to such teams as Assiniboine Memorial’s No. 2 seed Mike McEwen, who won his first-round game here 10-1 over Pilot Mound’s Curtis McCannell, fourth seed Reid Carruthers of West St. Paul, and fifth seed Jason Gunnlaugson. Gunnlaugson stopped Wayne Ewasko of the Heather 8-2 in the third round. In other third-round games, Brendan Taylor of West Kildonan defeated Burntwood’s Travis Graham 7-0 in six ends, Dave Boehmer of Petersfield lost 9-4 to Flin Flon’s Murray Woodward and Granite’s Bob Sigurdson defeated Brent Scales of Swan River 6-4.

“The young guys are really good teams,” said Burtnyk. “There are a number here who are really solid. Our team and Jeff’s (defending champion Stoughton) team are pretty solid too. If we all have a good week, it will make for some exciting curling, and we’ll see what happens.”

Stoughton, and his Charleswood crew of third Kevin Park, second Rob Fowler and lead Steve Gould, breezed through their third-draw game 8-2 against Fort Rouge’s Jim Kirkness.

Stoughton took advantage of his eight-end win, and practised a few shots before packing it in for the day. “You don’t get to throw that many variations of shots when you get up early (on the opponent), so I just wanted to throw a few nice weight hits, and get comfortable with the ice, so it was good.”

On his opening round win, Burtnyk said, “this certainly was the result I was looking for, but more importantly I was hoping that we’d come out fresh and get off to a good start, and make some good shots. I thought my guys (third Don Walchuk, second Rich Daneault and lead Garth Smith) played quite sharp for the first game into the event. That is really encouraging, and hopefully we can build from here.”

In Wednesday’s opening draw, Pembina’s Dave Kraichy stole two in the 11th end to defeat William Lyburn of Brandon 9-7.

In other first-round games, Dave Elias of West Kildonan knocked off Kelly Marnoch of Carberry 10-5, Mike McEwen of Assiniboine Memorial hammered Pilot Mound’s Curtis McCannell 10-1 in five ends, West Kildonan’s Andrew Wickman edged Terry McNamee of Hamiota 5-3, and Deloraine’s Murray Warren defeated Allan Lyburn of Brandon 8-3.

allan.besson@freepress.mb.ca