REGINA - The standings at the Montana’s Brier are not what a lot of people expect going to the final day of round robin play on Thursday.
At least one big-name team — Kevin Koe from Alberta — has already crashed out, while some lesser-known teams were still in contention as of Wednesday in Regina.
One of the feel-good stories was the strong performance of the Mike McEwen rink from Saskatchewan, looking to win the province its first Brier title in 44 years. The home team only needed a win against Nunavut to wrap up top spot in Pool B on Wednesday night and had no trouble at all. They cruised to a 9-3 win with Nunavut shaking hands after eight ends.
That win gave Saskatchewan a 6-1 record on top of the standings with just one game left to go in the round robin Thursday. Their next game is against Quebec, who dropped a 6-5 decision Wednesday night to Nova Scotia.
“Even though we’re straight in first place, we’re going to play hard tomorrow,” said McEwen to reporters afterwards. “I don’t think we want to let off the gas. I want to enter Friday playing really well. So I’m looking forward to the afternoon game tomorrow.”
McEwen’s team clinched top spot after securing the tiebreaker from their earlier head-to-head matchup with Brad Gushue and Team Canada, in which Saskatchewan prevailed 7-6. Gushue’s team is second at 5-2 going into Thursday.
When asked in the scrum what his reaction would be if someone had told him before the Brier that he’d be 6-1 and have locked up top spot in the same pool as the defending champions, McEwen said “I believe it. That was my goal. I stepped out on the ice on Saturday night when we were playing Gushue, I believed we were going to win.”
In a key game Wednesday night, Team Aaron Sluchinski of Alberta faced off versus Jamie Koe of Northwest Territories, whose team had been another of the feel-good success stories so far during the week.
But NWT wasn’t feeling so good after two lopsided scores on Wednesday. They dropped a 10-2 decision to Saskatchewan in the morning draw during a battle for first place. Against Sluchinski, Alberta took a commanding lead with three in the sixth, one in the seventh and two in the eighth, ending up with a 10-4 win.
That dropped NWT to 4-3, tied with Sluchinski for fourth place and only a half game ahead of 4-4 Nova Scotia heading into Thursday.
Meanwhile, one of the pre-Brier favorites, Kevin Koe of Alberta, tried to save face on what has been a disastrous Brier to this point, facing up against another of the emerging stories of this year's event: the Tyler Smith team from PEI.
It descended into yet another humbling performance for Koe's team. Smith managed three in the fifth end and two in the sixth, and PEI ultimately prevailed 9-3. PEI now stands at 5-2, tied with Gushue, while Koe dropped to a record of 1 and 6.
Over in Pool A, the teams of Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher, Northern Ontario’s Trevor Bonot and Manitoba’s Reid Carruthers shared the top spot with identical 5-1 records after Wednesday, with Matt Dunstone of Manitoba just one off the pace at 4-2. Each of these teams have two games left to go on Thursday to decide things.
The contending teams are all looking to nail down the six spots that are available going into play on Friday, the results of which will then determine who heads to the playoffs on Saturday.
