Gunnlaugson just one of ‘Toba’s rising stars

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This article was published 14/10/2016 (3639 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PORTAGE —Five years ago, Mike McEwen was scared for the future of men’s curling in Manitoba.

It wasn’t the big names at the time — himself, Reid Carruthers and Jeff Stoughton were all more than capable of winning big events.

It’s what he saw behind him that made him a little uneasy.

“I don’t know if we lost a generation there… it didn’t look good, at least from my perspective,” McEwen said. “There didn’t look like a heck of a lot coming up behind us.”

McEwen and his team are in Portage la Prairie this week, one of 32 rinks (11 of which are from Manitoba) competing in the $60,000 triple-knockout Canad Inns Men’s Classic on the World Curling Tour calendar.

Looking on after a comfortable 7-1 win in the second draw Friday afternoon, McEwen starting listing off names of Manitoban teams. He wasn’t trying to jog his memory. Instead, the four-time winner of the Men’s Classic was pointing out each rink that could be the next to explode onto the Grand Slam scene.

“It looks better now,” he said. “There’s some really talented guys out here. It’s a tough slog for guys with jobs, school, families… but the signs are promising, especially when you look out here at some of these rinks.”

One of the names McEwen mentioned is Jason Gunnlaugson and his rink out of the Granite Curling Club in Winnipeg.

With McEwen ranked third and Carruthers fifth in the Order of Merit, the next closest Manitoban to the top 15 — a ranking which affords teams more opportunities in Grand Slam events — is Gunnlaugson’s team, which is ranked 18th and is likely just one win away from making that jump.

Gunnlaugson, 32, was Carruthers’ third for three years in the mid-to-late 2000s and now skips his own team made up of the first, second and third from Manitoban Matt Dunstone’s rink that won the 2015 Canadian Junior Men’s Championship.

He feels some there’s teams catching up to the elite, and quickly.

“We saw that a little bit a provincials last year with the last four of five teams, every game was closer to a coin flip than it has been in the last five years,” Gunnlaughson said.

At the beginning of the year, two of the top four teams in the world hailed from Manitoba (currently two out of the top five).

“You better be damn good or you’re not going anywhere, so I think that inspires everyone else,” said Gunnlaughson, who moved from the low 20s to the 18th spot this year. “We’re going in the right direction… but we’re still in the in-between bit.”

Jon Mead would suggest the gap is narrowing between the top rinks competing every week and those trying to become top teams.

Stoughton’s long-time third out of the Charleswood Curling Club said he can peer down the ladder and see a wave of youth coming up, something he didn’t see in his early playing days.

“You have all these young guys super fit and super committed,” Mead said. “You also have some great people helping them behind the scenes and really investing into the sport between Curl Manitoba and all the coaches.

“The opportunities to play are better now. The top junior guys are travelling around the world. There are so many more things for these guys to get exposed to that even I didn’t have in my early 20s. You’d cobble together some guys and go to Thunder Bay to play.”

McEwen said he helped out at Carruthers’ junior curling camp this summer and saw things that caught him off guard.

“They were learning stuff that I didn’t learn until half-a-dozen years ago,” he said, grinning. “The kids are learning all this at much younger ages and they’re becoming much better equipped to be competitive.”

How does Mead see the health of men’s curling in the province?

“Manitobans should be really excited about the competitiveness in men’s curling for the foreseeable future,” he said.

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @scottbilleck