New guard has oddly familiar look to it

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This article was published 09/02/2015 (4118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON — It felt all last week at the Manitoba men’s curling championship as though a changing of the guard was in the making.

But what few were predicting was that when the king — aka Jeff Stoughton — stepped down from his throne Sunday — it was going to be Reid Carruthers who took the chair.

The fact Stoughton lost Sunday morning, eliminated in the semifinal, came as little surprise. The old guy can still toss ’em with the best, but he had a first-year team, a young front end and came in off a weak cash tour.

A 12th Manitoba men’s title simply didn’t seem in the cards for the 51-year-old Stoughton — and it wasn’t.

But the team everyone expected Stoughton to hand his mantle to Sunday wasn’t Carruthers — a former teammate — but Mike McEwen, a longtime rival who is nothing less than the top-ranked team in the world after a sensational cash tour this winter.

And that was particularly so after McEwen eliminated Stoughton with a 6-4 win in the semi. After losing three finals and a semifinal over the years to Stoughton at this event, the long-awaited victory over his nemesis seemed to set the table for McEwen’s long-awaited breakthrough in the final.

Instead, a different kind of history repeated itself for McEwen — but it was just as miserable. In 2012, McEwen managed to avoid playing Stoughton at all in the provincials, only to have his dream of a first Manitoba title derailed by a loss to Rob Fowler in the final.

This time, it was Carruthers’ turn to defeat McEwen in the final — 5-3 — driving home the point that McEwen’s problems at this event apparently extend much, much deeper than just Stoughton.

Consider: With Sunday’s loss, McEwen has now played in five provincial finals since 2010 and lost all five. In contrast, Stoughton has played in 12 provincial finals over the years and won 11.

Now, none of this is to take anything away from the remarkable season McEwen has had — they’re still the best team in the world this morning — it says so right in the World Curling Tour rankings.

It’s just that they’re the second-best team in Manitoba. Still. And again.

And as much as McEwen and the top curlers in this country who have built a very respectable little cash tour wished it were otherwise, the cold hard fact remains that you haven’t truly “made it” in Canadian men’s curling until you’ve played in the biggest bonspiel of them all — the Brier.

The Brier is to curling what the Masters is to golf and the Kentucky Derby is to horse racing — they are events that transcend their sport and attract mainstream audiences who wouldn’t otherwise be paying attention.

You know who California Chrome is because California Chrome won at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday of May last year. Only the hardcore punters — and the truly degenerate — know California Chrome also ran second over the weekend in the San Antonio Derby at Santa Anita.

It’s too bad, in a way: They would have loved these McEwen guys at the Brier in Calgary at the end of the month. Second Matt Wozniak’s goofy beard would surely have gone viral — and so too would have McEwen’s absolutely ridiculous throwing broom. Throw in the affable brothers Neufeld — third BJ and lead Denni — and the fans would have loved these guys.

Canadian men’s curling has needed some new blood for a long, long time and this McEwen squad would’ve injected a much-needed transfusion in Calgary.

Instead, that role will fall to Carruthers. While Carruthers isn’t exactly new Brier blood — it will be the fourth trip to the big show for a former Stoughton second who won a world title in 2011 — his team is new and interesting.

So yeah, the king is dead, long live the king. It’s just that the new king is Carruthers, not McEwen.

And as for the king being dead, well, let me leave you with this one final thought:

Asked after the loss to McEwen if we’ve seen the last of him at the Manitoba provincials, Stoughton just grinned. “I have no idea,” he said.

The thing about changing the guard is sometimes it changes right back.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @PaulWiecek