Cream rising at curling championship

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This article was published 11/02/2011 (5541 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BEAUSEJOUR — The field of 32 teams that started the Manitoba mens curling championship on Wednesday is now down to 12 teams Friday afternoon.

With four teams qualified for the playoff round this morning — Mike McEwen, Jeff Stoughton, Vic Peters and Rob Fowler — four more playoff teams will be decided here on the 4 p.m. draw.

Former Manitoba mixed champions Terry McNamee and Sean Grassie play each other, as do Bob Sigurdson and Peter Nicholls, Andy Stewart and Brent Strachan and Randy Neufeld and Willie Lyburn.

McNamee advanced with an 8-2 win over Travis Graham on the 12:15 p.m. draw, while Neufeld beat Brent Scales 6-5, Sigurdson beat Randy Dutiaume 7-4 and Stewart edged Hamblin 8-7.

The four A-side qualifying games on the ice this morning played out more or less according to form. Top seed Mike McEwen defeated Sean Grassie 7-3, defending champion Jeff Stoughton thrashed Willy Lyburn 8-1, third seed Rob Fowler drilled Hamiota’s Brent Strachan 8-2 and the game you’d have expected to be closest — a clash between fourth seed Peter Nicholls and fifth seed Vic Peters — went to an extra end, won 7-5 by Peters.

“Right on — this is great,” said Peters. “We’ve got to the 8’s, now one more step of course. But that was a big game for us.”

Peters is playing here with his son, Daley Peters, and joked that he’s happy to be throwing third rocks — “I’m glad he’s throwing the last ones at the end and not me” — as the younger Peters had to make big shots in the 10th and extra ends to eke out the victory

McEwen, meanwhile, was happier with his team’s effort against Grassie this morning. The top ranked foursome struggled in a win against Garth Smith on Thursday but appeared to find their game today.

“That was a solid game — start to end,” McEwen said. “We didn’t miss much out there.”