McEwen wins to open Roar of the Rings

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This article was published 03/12/2017 (2869 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — It takes four years to get here.

Four years of curling in empty — or near empty — arenas all over Canada, all winter long.

Four years of working out, on the ice and off.

Four years of eating nothing that tastes good.

Four years of living and breathing one goal: getting your curling team to the Roar of the Rings and earning the right to represent Canada at the Winter Olympics.

And so there is something a bit cruel in the fact that once you finally get here, it’s all a bit of a crapshoot.

Because while you’re the fittest you’ll ever be in your life — so is everyone else.

And while you’re the sharpest you’ll ever be on the ice — so is everyone else.

And so in the end, the difference between first and everyone else at an event where there really is no second place is the tiniest of margins, a couple of shots here or there over the course of a marathon round robin.

Saturday night, those margins were on Mike McEwen’s side.

In what was a superbly played all-Manitoba matchup between former provincial champions in McEwen and Reid Carruthers, it was McEwen who was just a tiny bit better in a 7-3 win.

How good was this game? The Carruthers foursome actually outcurled McEwen 90-89, yet lost by a lopsided score in a game that turned on a steal of two for McEwen in the fifth end that tilted what had been a 1-1 nail-biter irreversibly towards McEwen.

“It was the teetering point of the game because the first four ends were a pretty good battle,” Carruthers said afterward.

“But that’s why we love the game. I banged my head tonight, but tomorrow I could win by the other side of the margin.”

After forcing Carruthers to take a single in the sixth end, McEwen effectively put the game away for good in the seventh when a pressing Carruthers foursome took one chance too many and left McEwen needing nothing more than a draw to the four-foot with the final rock of the end to score a back-breaking three-ender.

Now, it was just one win, and it came in just the first game of this event for both teams. But some wins count more than others — and any win in this event counts more than all the others.

McEwen had lost nine of his last 12 meetings against Carruthers, but all of that was forgotten on an opening night that sent his team home with a shiny 1-0 record.

“They’ve had our number in a lot of matches,” McEwen said of Carruthers. “They tend to play well against us. And I thought we were just that much sharper.

“We picked up on the ice really quick and I liked what we did out there.”

The McEwen-Carruthers game was one of three games involving Winnipeg-based teams Saturday night. The other two saw reigning Olympic gold medallist Jennifer Jones kick off her quest to defend her gold with a come-from-behind 9-6 win over Edmonton’s Val Sweeting, while defending Manitoba women’s champion Michelle Englot lost her first game 9-4 to Thunder Bay’s Krista McCarville.

Jones spotted Sweeting a 3-0 lead in the very first end when, drawing against three Sweeting counters in the 12-foot, Jones pulled the string and crashed out front.

Call it a wake-up call, because Jones and her foursome — third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jill Officer and lead Dawn McEwen — were ruthlessly efficient the rest of the way.

Jones had Sweeting’s advantage whittled down to 4-3 by the fourth end and the game was all tied 6-6 in the ninth when Sweeting missed with the final rock of the end to return the favour and hand Jones a steal of three of her own.

Jones ran Sweeting out of rocks from there and it went in the books as a lopsided score that — like the McEwen-Carruthers matchup — didn’t begin to tell the real story of this night.

“Definitely not routine,” Jones said afterward with a laugh.

“But you’re going to have those games where you talk about how you found a way to win. And that’s one of those.

“We said at the fifth-end break, ‘Let’s just find a way to win.’ And we did.”

It was a very different story for Englot, who fell behind 3-1 after three ends and just dug herself deeper and deeper against McCarville as she pressed to get back in the game.

The final percentages told the story — Englot shot just 60 per cent, while her third, Kate Cameron, was even worse at 58 per cent.

“We had some chances early and let them off the hook,” Englot said. “We had opportunities to put some pressure on and if I make a better shot even in the first end, that’s probably a very different game.”

Englot faces Jones this morning in a battle of provincial rivals. It’s the only game of the day for Englot, while Jones also plays again tonight against 2001 Manitoba junior champion Allison Flaxey, who is curling out of Toronto these days.

McEwen plays Vernon’s John Morris this afternoon in his only game of the day, while Carruthers plays Calgary’s Kevin Koe tonight in his only game of the day.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek