Stewart wins the Lott-ery

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This article was published 03/12/2023 (867 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Before this week, Brayden Stewart and Kadriana Lott had only curled against each other.

But with Stewart’s fiancé, Chaelynn Kitz, a late scratch, he needed a fill-in ahead of the Winnipeg stop on the mixed-doubles Super Series circuit.

“We’ve been playing the game the same amount of years and my fiancé couldn’t make it and (Lott) is from the area so I thought, ‘Who better to ask?’” Stewart said.

Stewart’s choice couldn’t have been better, as the unlikely duo capped a marvellous run with a 7-6 triumph over Edmonton’s Laura Walker and Kirk Muyres in Sunday’s championship draw at Fort Rouge Curling Club. The pair took home the $6,000 cash prize for their efforts.

Stewart and Lott’s four-point sixth end on the power play proved to be the difference against the top-ranked mixed-doubles team in the country.

“We didn’t play the best in each game but we figured out each other along the way,” said Stewart, who recently moved from Saskatchewan to Minnedosa. “We made the fixes earlier in the week … then we played similar during the week, but we just made those few adjustments.”

Added Lott, who calls Gimli home: “Yeah, and as each game went on we kind of learned different things about each throw, (became) more comfortable. Going into the playoffs I think we played a little bit stronger than we did in the round-robin.”

Stewart and Lott snuck into the playoffs with a 3-2 record in round-robin play but found their groove on the weekend, cruising to the finals on the strength of 8-4 and 8-3 victories.

Walker and Muyres were leading 4-3 through five ends when Stewart and Lott decided to use their power play. A four-ender put the pressure on and forced the Edmonton representatives to use their power play to spark some offence of their own, but to no avail as they only scored one point.

“We played it shot by shot really. I think it helped we got some misses out of them,” Lott said of the deciding sixth end. “We made the key shots when we needed to.”

Added Stewart: “We chose to do it because early on in the week, we didn’t play it in the sixth (end) and tried to save it until the eighth, but then we ended up stealing in the seventh so we couldn’t use it because we didn’t have the hammer.

“So we just said, ‘Let’s use it now so that we don’t get stuck not being able to use it the whole game.’”

Walker and Muyres, which turned its focus to the mixed-doubles format last year with the goal of representing Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics, added 26 points to their standing in the Canadian ranking for their runner-up finish.

They had been perfect ahead of the championship draw, boosting an unblemished 7-0 record, but couldn’t find their touch when it mattered most, often coming up light on their shots.

“We’ll see. We’ll see what our partners are up to or if we’re free or we have the time,” Lott said.

“We don’t want to go anymore because we’ll have the pressure,” Stewart quipped. “We’re one-for-one and we’ll leave it at that.”

The mixed-doubles super series has three stops remaining on the calendar, the next taking place in Oakville, Ont. from Dec. 28-31.

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Just outside of the Manitoba capital, the Dekalb Superspiel rolled on in Morris on Sunday.

Braden Calvert defeated fellow Winnipegger Ryan Wiebe 5-2 in the morning to qualify for Monday’s quarterfinal. Ontario’s Tanner Horgan, the 2019 tournament champion, also qualified after knocking off Halifax’s Owen Purcell 5-4.

Purcell was later eliminated after falling 7-3 to Winnipeg’s Jordon McDonald, who punched his ticket to the quarterfinals with the victory. Meanwhile, Wiebe avenged his early defeat and snuck into the quarterfinals after outlasting America’s Nicholas Connolly 8-6.

At the time of writing, just two seats needed to be filled in Monday’s final six. Winnipeg’s Riley Smith played Halifax’s Matthew Manuel, the winner faced Purcell for one spot. One of three Americans — Connolly, Connor Kauffman or Rich Ruohonen — grabbed the other.

On the women’s side, a pair of Edmonton representatives, Selena Sturmay and Serena Gray-Withers, grabbed the first two spots in the quarterfinals. Switzerland’s Xenia Schwaller and Ottawa’s Danielle Inglis, who beat Kristy Watling of Winnipeg 7-6, followed.

At the time of writing, four seats remained in Monday’s final six. Watling, Jolene Campbell and Rhonda Varnes are all that remained of the local flavour.

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

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