‘Are you kidding me?’

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This article was published 29/01/2015 (4121 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mike McEwen didn’t like the first question: So, is this finally the year you win a Manitoba men’s curling championship?

“You ask me that every year. C’mon, change up your questions,” said McEwen as reporters surrounded him at the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame Wednesday morning, moments after his team was unveiled as the top seed for next month’s Manitoba men’s curling championship.

McEwen really didn’t like the third question either: Given the dominating run your team has had through the cash-spiel circuit this winter, do you feel like it’s now or never?

“Are you kidding me? Oh man, I almost laugh when I hear that,” he said. “That’s almost like somebody asking if we didn’t win this championship, we’d just quit the next day and never curl again. I think that notion’s silly.”

Maybe. But by his own admission, McEwen said his team almost did break up after last year’s loss at the Safeway Championship — and almost certainly would have gone their separate ways had they been forced to make that decision immediately after they lost their fourth provincial final since 2010.

And really, who would have blamed them if they had broken up? It has been the curse for years of this McEwen squad — third B.J. Neufeld, second Matt Wozniak and lead Denni Neufeld — that they have been known as the best team in the world never to win a provincial championship.

And now, after an electrifying run through this winter’s cash-spiel circuit has been historic in its dominance, they are simply the best team in the world — ranked No. 1 on the World Curling Tour’s Order of Merit.

So yeah, McEwen is a bit prickly about this whole provincials thing and the idea that while he has the best team in the world, he is still second best in Manitoba until he can figure out a way to finally break through and get to his first Brier.

On paper, McEwen has never been better positioned for the Manitoba provincials than he is this year. His team won an eye-popping six out of eight tour events they entered this winter and have a record of, get this, 49-8 on the WCT this season.

Jeff Stoughton, on the other hand, has limped through this year’s cash tour with a new team and really should probably be next month’s third seed, behind both McEwen and Reid Carruthers, Stoughton’s former second who is ranked fourth in Canada after a big cash tour for his new team.

But provincial curling titles are won on the ice, not on paper, and nobody has ever been more dominating at the Manitoba men’s provincials than the 11-time champion that is the 51-year-old Stoughton.

All of which is to say money cannot buy you Manitoba men’s curling championships.

“When we formed this team last year, the goal was to represent Manitoba at the Brier,” said Stoughton lead Connor Njegovan. “And we’ve focused all our efforts towards the provincials, for sure, because we don’t know how long Jeff is going to keep playing.

“So we want to keep him happy. And the way to keep Jeff happy is to represent Manitoba.”

Carruthers says he’s just happy to be playing at an event next month where all the focus is going to be on the McEwen-Stoughton storyline, leaving plenty of room for his experienced team — third Braeden Moskowy, second Derek Samagalski and lead Colin Hodgson — to fly under the radar.

“We love the spot we’re in,” said Carruthers, who won a world championship with Stoughton in 2011. “We had some goals coming into this year and we’re doing better than we hoped. And we know that we have the guys who can win this event.”

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So does McEwen, of course. His record on the WCT this winter translates into an .860 winning percentage, which eclipses the best previous single-season winning percentage on the WCT of .857, set by Kevin Martin in 2005 and tied by Martin in 2007.

To be denied an elusive Manitoba championship after a season like that would surely be hard to take for McEwen. But he’s still young and the future of curling is bright, particularly after last week’s announcement by Sportsnet that the network is pumping $4 million in prize money over the next two winters into the Grand Slam curling circuit.

McEwen insisted he’s taking the long view and the world won’t end for his team no matter what happens in Brandon.

“We’re going to be in the game a long time,” said McEwen. “We’ll go ahead and treat it like any other event. It’s not a moment that defines our whole season. We’ve had an amazing season and we’re going to continue to do that regardless of whether we win or not in Brandon.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @PaulWiecek