McEwen bounces back after first loss

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This article was published 04/03/2020 (2335 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

KINGSTON, Ont. — Mike McEwen completed just 50 per cent of Tuesday’s demanding assignment at the Brier, yet still earned a quality grade.

Slap a well-deserved B+ on the fellows from Manitoba, who don’t actually represent the region nearest and dearest to their hearts this week at the Canadian men’s curling championship.

Team Wild Card, featuring McEwen at skip, third Reid Carruthers, second Derek Samagalski and lead Colin Hodgson, was simply sensational in key matchups against a pair of Brier favourites, losing a tight one to Team Canada’s Kevin Koe but rebounding to trounce Ontario’s John Epping to settle for an all-important split.

McEwen has fashioned a superb 5-1 record in Pool A this week and is a shoo-in for the eight-team championship round, beginning Thursday. Koe (4-2) later lost to Saskatchewan’s Matt Dunstone (5-1), the former Winnipegger who has now rattled off five consecutive wins. Epping (3-3), in on shaky ground.

The past five days, beginning with the West St. Paul team’s victory over Ontario’s Glenn Howard in the last-chance, play-in game Friday night, have been its finest body of work in two seasons as a unit, Hodgson said emphatically.

“This is definitely the best we’ve ever played as a team, easily, since the four of us came together,” he said. “We’ve been up and down, especially at big events like this where you have to play consistently well the whole time.

“(Tuesday) in both games, I guess the way things were put together we just kind of had this quiet, calm determination that where we wouldn’t be denied, and it was going to take something ridiculous to do it, which Koe did. But that’s OK.”

Wild Card curled a combined 89 per cent against Canada, only to suffer the knock-out blow from Koe on his last rock of an afternoon battle. He was up to his old tricks, making a highlight-reel shot with very little time left on the clock — made possible after McEwen’s final stone slid behind the button — as the defending champions seized a 3-2 triumph.

Six ends were blanked in the game and the drama was generated in the late stages. With Wild Card up 2-1 and lying three in the 10th, the brilliant Calgarian — gunning for a record fifth Brier title as a skip — didn’t even think about drawing for the tie and an extra end, going for broke, instead, with a skinny triple-takeout try for a deuce that worked to perfection, producing a thunderous cheer from the Leon’s Centre crowd.

McEwen’s foursome displayed no signs of discouragement — and well they shouldn’t have — against Ontario in the late draw. Relentless from the first rocks Hodgson delivered in the opening end, they refused to release the pressure in an 11-7 romp in eight ends over Epping’s crew.

“I was obviously disappointed… angry (with the loss to Koe). It was really unfortunate what I did with my last stone in that game. I had an easy shot to not give him that, so pretty salty to lose like that,” McEwen said. “To come back and play John — because angry can go badly, too — I was very focused and the boys played well in front of me.

“That was admirable from the boys. I thought we bounced back really well. John just missed a couple early, really hard shots. It’s exciting to see us play that well.”

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Wild Card plays just once today to complete the preliminary round-robin, an evening meeting with James Grattan of New Brunswick (3-2)

Four teams from each of pools A and B advance to the championship round, carry their record with them and play four games against teams from the opposite site. The four teams with the best aggregate records make the weekend Page playoff system.

Sunday night’s champion earns a trip to the world men’s championship later this month in Glasgow, Scotland.

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell