Everybody knows everybody — and anyone can win it

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This article was published 03/03/2017 (3433 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — There were handshakes, back-slaps and even a few hugs Friday morning, as the boys of winter assembled at Mile One Centre to test out the arena ice just before the start of the 2017 Brier.

Everyone knows everyone at the Canadian men’s curling championship.

“Lots of familiar faces,” a grinning Mike McEwen, who is skipping his Fort Rouge team in their second-straight Brier, said after an hour-long practice.

“We’re all wearing different colours than what we would normally see each other in, on every other given weekend.”

Regular gear boldly bearing the names and logos of team sponsors is nowhere to be seen. McEwen, third B.J. Neufeld, second Matt Wozniak and lead Denni Neufeld instead are sporting Manitoba yellow-and-whites with the buffalo crest on their backs.

“You know everybody, and everybody’s pretty loose,” McEwen said. “But things are going to be amplified once this gets going. I’m excited for that. Guys will get pretty amped up (Saturday).”

Team Manitoba takes on Saskatchewan’s Adam Casey in today’s opening draw (12:30 p.m. CT).

Every one of the 5,500 seats at the downtown arena is sold out for the opener. Most fans will be solidly behind Brad Gushue’s Newfoundland-Labrador team, the home-team favourite.

McEwen is anticipating a raucous crowd.

“Communication might be a little bit cumbersome,” he said. “We might have to use some hand signals, depending on what’s happening beside us.

“I know the first draw of a Brier, there’ll be some anxious energy there for all of us. I think we’ll be ready to play, and really feeding off the environment. I think it’ll be exciting to play in.”

Manitoba’s rink has Saturday night off but assumes the role of the villain Sunday morning in a showdown with Gushue. McEwen takes on Jamie Koe of Northwest Territories in the Sunday evening draw.

Returning champ

Kevin Koe’s team from Calgary still looks mighty sharp in Canadian colours.

Koe, third Marc Kennedy, second Brent Laing and lead Ben Hebert haven’t worn the maple leaf since last April, when they downed Denmark’s Rasmus Stjerne 5-3 in the gold-medal game of the 2016 world men’s championship in Basel, Switzerland.

They’re back at the Brier this week in St. John’s, representing as Team Canada and hitting the road to a repeat, against Jean-Michel Ménard of Quebec in the evening draw.

“It never gets old, that’s for sure,” said Koe, a three-time champion now playing in his sixth Brier — but the first time he’s bypassed the always tough Alberta playdowns to get there. “Being Team Canada, this feels great but it’s a little unique. We’re looking forward to the week.”

Koe called the 2016-17 curling campaign “a real up-and-down season for us,” but he likes the shape the team’s in right now, both physically and mentally.

“The big thing being Team Canada is that you lose those really important, intense games that you’d normally have at provincials. But it’s easy to get up for the Brier once we get going. We’ve relied on a lot of hard practice leading up to this,” said Koe, whose brother, Jamie, is also competing here this week.

“This is an amazing field. Whoever wins, they’re obviously going to have to play well. There’s a ton of teams that can win it.”

Last one in

Nova Scotia’s Jamie Murphy meets Craig Kochan of Yukon this morning to determine the Brier’s final entry.

Murphy’s team finished a four-team pre-qualifying round-robin — held here Thursday and Friday — with a 3-0 record, while Kochan’s crew was 2-1. The winner immediately faces a tough foe, Ontario’s Glenn Howard, in the Brier’s evening draw.

Eddie MacKenzie of Prince Edward Island (1-2 in pre-qualifying) and Jim Nix of Nunavut (0-3) are done.

Hotshots

A pair of snipers from Team Northern Ontario are in today’s final four of the annual hotshots tournament.

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Skip Brad Jacobs and third Ryan Fry finished first and second, respectively, out of all curlers here Friday, while Newfoundland-Labrador skip Brad Gushue placed third and Quebec third Martin Crête came fourth.

This year, curlers were challenged with five different shots, including two that replicated a pair of the game’s greatest tosses, the Al Hackner thin double-takeout from the 1985 Brier final and Sandra Schmirler’s circus-shot, in-off takeout in the final of the 1997 Olympic Trials.

Shots were scored on a five-point system. Fry was deadly accurate, racking up 21 of 25 points.

The four will attempt the same shots today, with the winner getting a two-year lease on a 2017 Ford Escape SUV. The runner-up earns $2,000 and the third-place finisher picks up $1,000.

jason.bell@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @WFPJasonBell