McEwen advances to first Safeway Championship final
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/02/2010 (5877 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
STEINBACH — Earlier this week Mike McEwen said he’d like to stamp his ticket to the Brier in Halifax with a win over a curling Manitoba curling luminary such as Kerry Burtnyk or Jeff Stoughton. He’ll get that chance today.
With a solid 7-5 win over Stoughton in Saturday night’s Page playoff top qualifier’s game, the 29-year-old McEwen advanced to his first Safeway Championship final, which goes today at 2 p.m.
Stoughton’s first loss of the week drops him to this morning’s semifinal against Burtnyk at 9:30 a.m. Burtnyk defeated Jason Gunnlaugson 5-4 in the bottom qualifier to stay alive and meet old foe Stoughton in a classic Manitoba matchup.
“It was great to see all three guys in front of me step up,” said McEwen, referring to third B.J. Neufeld and front end Matt Wozniak and Denni Neufeld. “There were a ton of key shots. A really good team effort.”
Stoughton lost just his third game at this event dating back to 2006, a span that has seen him win three of the last four provincial titles, with Burtnyk claiming the other.
But McEwen, who is scraping and grinding on the World Curling Tour to build a game and a team that rivals the best in the country, no longer fears any man he meets on the ice.
“Whether it’s Jeff or Kerry, we’re going to be in for a battle in the final,” said McEwen. “But we felt really good going in to this week.”
Saturday night at Steinbach’s T.G. Smith Centre was a compelling tableau on ice with the hungry hunting the hallowed.
Veterans Stoughton and Burtnyk, with 12 provincial championships between them, curled on different sheets against the future in McEwen and Gunnlaugson.
The differences were apparent in many ways, grey hair or no hair against a goatee and a shaggy mop, but perhaps mostly in volume.
McEwen, with a team steeped in Steinbach relations, had the support of the crowd, who greeted his shots with roars and Stoughton’s mostly with silence.
While Burtnyk went about his business in methodic and stoic fashion, Gunnlaugson reined in his swath of hair with a tuque that could pass for a tea cozy but let his fists and his shouts loose. Watching Gunnlaugson curl is a lot like going to a rock concert with all the expected sound and fury.
McEwen moved out in front of Stoughton early and after the veteran tied things up, answered with a deuce in the ninth to move to the championship final.
Burtnyk and Gunnlaugson sparred all night before the statesman scored two in the 10th end to send the Beausejour upstart packing.
gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca