McEwen cruises to victory

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This article was published 05/02/2020 (2281 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There were no upset specials on the opening day of action at the Viterra Championship Wednesday.

Top-seeded Mike McEwen and his teammates from West St. Paul mounted their provincial title defence with a 11-2 triumph over St. Vital’s Paul Scinocca in 4 p.m draw. The teams shook hands after the eighth end.

Team McEwen is ranked fourth in Canada and is fifth on the World Curling Tour, while the 51-year-old Scinocca was making his provincial championship debut.

Scinocca was also venturing onto arena ice for the first time in his curling career. 

“It was exciting and just to be on the ice with Mike and the boys was real fun,” said Scinocca, who will meet Virden’s Graham Freeman at 4 p.m. Thursday. “… We did make some mistakes reading the ice. I don’t think it was tough but we had to get used to deliveries — releasing the rocks.”

Trailing 6-1 at the fifth-end break, Scinocca took the opportunity to substitute his fifth, Dan Lagace, for lead Justin Hartloper. 

“We wanted to get him some experience and I know it meant a ton for him,” said Scinocca. “To just get on the ice with the boys — Mike and the guys… If it was a close game, we might have considered not making a change but at that time we thought it was the right thing to do.”

Was his first Viterra experience enough to last a lifetime?

“No, I’ve got the itch,” said Scinnoca. “I’d love to come back. I don’t think we had aspirations before and now we do…

“We have a mindset now where we’ve been on this ice, we’ve had a game on it. We know what to expect and we can go out and maybe relax a little bit more.”

McEwen was asked to explain his approach to blowout games at the provincials.

“I guess the big thing when you get a big lead is try to learn as much about the ice as you can and still approaching every shot, every end with a focus you would like later in the week,” said McEwen. “It’s a good time to make a lot of precise shots and learn as much out of the playing conditions as you can.

“We don’t take those games lightly. We still want to get as much out (of them) — we’re going to be back on that sheet, potentially, at some point so we want to learn as much as we can.”

McEwen lauded icemaker Greg Ewasko and his crew for getting the Eric Coy Arena prepared for competition so quickly.

“The turnaround from the Scotties (last week) to this is crazy,” said McEwen. “So what they’ve managed to put out there for the first day of competition looks pretty exciting for the week.”

In other heavyweight action Wednesday, fifth-seeded William Lyburn of the Granite, beaten by McEwen in the 2019 provincial final, thumped Virden’s Jay Kinnaird 8-4.

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“It was more emotional at the time and it was nice to get through it and see what it’s about,” said Lyburn of his first appearance in a provincial final. “We definitely have a slightly stronger mindset based on our experience last year…

Lyburn has a new front end this time around, with second Kennedy Bird and Wade Ford joining incumbent third Daley Peters.

Earlier in the day, second-seeded Jason Gunnlaugsson of Morris beat Charleswood’s Darren Perche 10-5, No. 3 Tanner Horgan of Winnipeg Beach upended Burntwood’s Shaun Parsons 10-3 and No. 4 Braden Calvert of Assiniboine Memorial upended Allan Gitzel of Morris, 11-1.

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14