McEwen foursome rightful holders of Manitoba spot at Brier

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This article was published 15/02/2016 (3860 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mike McEwen laid the doubts to rest Sunday: about his ability to win the big game; about the legitimacy of his team’s trip to the 2016 Brier and about the place of his enigmatic team in the long and storied history of Manitoba curling.

McEwen and the rest of his Fort Rouge foursome proved with a masterful performance in Sunday’s final of the Manitoba men’s curling championship they are not only arguably the best men’s team in the world right now, they are also — finally and mercifully — also the best men’s team in Manitoba.

McEwen’s 4-2 win over Matt Dunstone in Sunday’s final in Selkirk capped a 7-0 romp through the provincial tournament — an emphatic answer to any lingering questions about whether this McEwen foursome belongs in the same class as Manitoba greats such as Jeff Stoughton, Vic Peters and Kerry Burtnyk.

Sunday’s clash was one for the ages, a brilliant display of curling by two teams at the very top of their games that came down to the final rocks of the final end. In that last end, it was McEwen who put his team over the top, proving once and for all he’s more than just a really good cashspieler.

With the game tied 2-2 in the 10th end, and McEwen holding hammer but in deep trouble, the skip talked his team into playing a risky raised double-takeout with his first rock.

It was a bold call, brilliantly executed.

But just as he had all week long, Dunstone refused to quit, burying his final rock behind cover, biting the button.

That left McEwen with a test of a champion: an exceptionally difficult in-turn tap of Dunstone’s counter for the Manitoba title.

If he missed it, McEwen would have been forever known as the only skip in history to lose a Manitoba final and yet still represent the province at the Brier (thanks to a scheduling conflict that would have prevented Dunstone from going to the big event even if he’d won Sunday because his Canadian champion squad has a date at the world junior tournament).

But McEwen made the shot — under extreme duress — and laid waste to any argument about the legitimacy of the 2016 Manitoba Brier representative.

Yes, McEwen backed his way into his long-awaited first Brier berth — through no fault of his own — by earning the berth first and the Manitoba title second.

But no less an authority than Stoughton, the three-time Canadian champion who worked in Selkirk during the weekend as the colour man for Sportsnet, said prior to the final the pressure on McEwen to avoid forever being saddled with an asterisk gave him more to lose, not less.

And McEwen said as much after the win, telling reporters that while a guaranteed Brier berth eased his mind, there was nothing easy about that final end Sunday.

Think about it: McEwen had lost five finals in six years heading into this one. Try to imagine the reaction if he’d lost a sixth final and yet still advanced to the Brier because of Dunstone’s scheduling conflict.

He needed that shot as much as any Manitoba skip has ever needed a shot. And he made it.

Hats off to the guy. And hats off to the entire team — third B.J. Neufeld, second Matt Wozniak and lead Denni Neufeld — who in the face of all that disappointment over the years continued to believe in themselves.

In the end, the biggest winner, of course, was Manitoba curling and the province’s rabid fans.

Curl Manitoba, the governing body of the sport, has a mandate to ensure the province sends its teams to national and international competitions as well-prepared as possible.

By allowing Dunstone to take part in this year’s provincials despite the fact he couldn’t accept a Brier invitation, Curl Manitoba gave the young foursome an invaluable experience that will send it to this year’s world juniors battle-tested in a way none of their opponents in Denmark has been.

They will be men playing with boys.

(An aside: the Dunstone team also picked up big points in Selkirk towards a berth in the 2017 Olympic Trials — something the knuckleheads who argued they shouldn’t have been allowed to play at the provincials last week chose to overlook. Memo to everyone: punishing teams for winning national championships does no one any good.)

And McEwen?

He is as battle-tested heading to the Brier as Dunstone is heading to the world juniors.

Dues have been paid.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek