McEwen’s and Jones’ Olympic dreams still alive

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/12/2017 (3059 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The news was all good for Manitoba curling fans here at the Roar of the Rings on Friday.

Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen clinched at least a tiebreaker game with a gritty 6-4 win over Edmonton’s Brendan Bottcher; former Winnipegger Chelsea Carey, with current Winnipegger Cathy Overton-Clapham at third, clinched a berth in Sunday’s final with a 5-2 win over Krista McCarville; and Jennifer Jones and her Winnipeg-based team clinched a berth in Saturday afternoon’s women’s semifinal against Rachel Homan without even setting foot on the ice, thanks to a pair of McCarville losses on Friday that eliminated McCarville’s Thunder Bay team from contention.

Put it all together and there will be a whole lot of Winnipeggers still playing this weekend as Canada determines its men’s and women’s representatives in curling for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Korea in February.

McEwen was down 4-2 playing Bottcher and looked like he was in trouble when McEwen third B.J. Neufeld made a brilliant freeze in the eighth end that set up a go-ahead three-ender.

The win over Bottcher means McEwen finishes the round-robin at 5-3 and will now await the result of a game Friday night between Bottcher, who has now been eliminated at 3-4, and Winnipeg’s Reid Carruthers, who is still alive at 4-3.

If Carruthers wins Friday night, he would face McEwen in a tiebreaker game Saturday morning, with the winner of that game advancing to face Brad Gushue Saturday night. The winner of the semifinal will face Kevin Koe in the final.

If Carruthers loses Friday night, he will be eliminated and McEwen would advance directly to the semifinal against Gushue.

Either way, McEwen’s Olympic dream is still alive and the challenge the rest of the weekend will be for a once famously hot-headed skip to keep the same even keel he’s had here all week.

McEwen said he’s learned from his past meltdowns in big games, which included five straight losses in the Manitoba men’s final from 2010-15.

“I think that bodes well going forward. In a tough situation, I don’t think I will get too tense or too knotted up,” McEwen said Friday morning.

“I’ve been through that in five provincial final (losses) already. I know what that feels like. I’m battle tested as far as nerves go.”

Carey and Overton-Clapham, meanwhile, finished the round-robin a perfect 8-0 and are now just one more win away from the Olympics.

It’s an incredible moment for Overton-Clapham, who at age 48 was thinking seriously about retiring from curling when Carey called her last summer with an offer to curl third for her Calgary-based team and take one last run at the Olympics.

“I asked if I could have a couple days to think about it,” Overton-Clapham reflected Friday morning. “And then once I did commit, I was all-in…

“A few months ago, I was saying to (Carey lead) Laine (Peters), ‘We’ve got a good chance.’ And as we were walking down there (Friday morning), I said, ‘Who knew?’

“And she said, ‘You knew.’”

Jones (5-2), meanwhile, will now play hometown favourite Rachel Homan (6-1) in back-to-back games.

The pair will meet here Friday night on the last draw of the round-robin in a game that will determine hammer for the rematch in Saturday’s semifinal, where the winner will advance to face Carey.

Homan will have Michelle Englot and her Winnipeg foursome cheering for her this weekend. Englot was the runner-up to Homan at last year’s national Scotties, and if Homan wins here this weekend, it would be Englot who would compete at the 2018 Scotties as Team Canada, while Homan would focus on the Olympics.

“We’re definitely Homan fans this weekend,” Englot said Friday after her final round-robin game, a 10-3 loss to Carey that dropped her squad’s record to 2-6.

“There’s a lot on the line here for us this weekend if she wins.”

In addition to the Scotties, Englot would also earn the right to compete at next month’s Continental Cup if Homan wins it all this weekend.