McEwen reaches Q-finals at BDO

Posted: 1:00 AM CST Saturday, Jan. 29, 2011

OSHAWA, Ont. -- It used to be that a 2-3 round-robin record wasn't good enough to stay alive at a Capital One Grand Slam of Curling event.

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OSHAWA, Ont. -- It used to be that a 2-3 round-robin record wasn't good enough to stay alive at a Capital One Grand Slam of Curling event.

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This article was published 29/01/2011 (5651 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OSHAWA, Ont. — It used to be that a 2-3 round-robin record wasn’t good enough to stay alive at a Capital One Grand Slam of Curling event.

That changed Friday night at the BDO Canadian Open.

When Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud missed his draw for the win over Peter Corner, handing a 5-3 victory to Brampton, Ont., skip, it turned the third leg of the Grand Slam into tiebreaker festival.

Suddenly, eight teams with 2-3 records were in the running for the eighth and final quarter-final playoff spot. Four of those teams were eliminated based on draw shot distance, or “shootout” scores. The remaining four teams will meet in tiebreakers Saturday morning in two six-end draws. The winning squad will face Glenn Howard of Coldwater, Ont., in the playoff round.

The tiebreakers will pit John Epping of Toronto against Rob Fowler of Brandon and Mark Bice of Sarnia, Ont., against Don Walchuk of Edmonton. The winners will face off for the chance to play Howard.

A victory would have sent Ulsrud straight to the quarter-finals. Instead, being a couple of inches heavy dumped his team into the bottom half of the group at 2-3 pile, and he was eliminated.

In the other quarter-finals, Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen faces Dale Matchett of Bradford, Ont., Regina’s Pat Simmons faces reigning world champion Kevin Koe of Edmonton, and Winnipeg’s Jeff Stoughton meets Olympic champion Kevin Martin of Edmonton.

Martin beat Stoughton 6-1 Friday night to finish at 3-2 and edge into the playoffs. A 6-5 loss to Corner earlier Friday put Martin on the brink of elimination.

In other late Friday games: McEwen beat Jake Higgs of Harrison, Ont., 7-6; Matchett upended Mark Kean of Ajax, Ont., 6-5; and Howard crushed Jim Cotter of Vernon, B.C., 7-2.

Earlier in the day, Stoughton beat Ulsrud 5-3; Bice beat Cotter 6-3; McEwen beat Koe 7-3; Howard beat Simmons 6-4; Simmons beat Walchuk 6-3; Fowler beat Epping 6-4; Randy Ferbey of St. Johns, N.L., beat Bice 8-1; and Higgs beat Kean 8-7.

— Postmedia News