"Throw-together rink" knocks off Koe

In Alberta, the story wasn’t about a favourite winning (for a change) it was how one lost. Kevin Koe was beaten in his B semi by unheralded Aaron Sluchinski, who moves on to the 1-2 final against Kevin Martin.

As Norm Cowley details, the team that set it's goal high -- win a game! -- was full value for its big win. 

“That was our first time playing any of the big boys,” Sluchinski said after upsetting Koe 10-7 in an provincial men’s championship B Event semifinal.“This is brand new to us. It’s pretty nerve-racking out there playing against those guys. I was actually pretty jittery and nervous the whole time. It was good to come out with a win.”

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B.C. will be sending a new representative to the Tim Hortons Brier, although we’re not quite sure who it is yet. As the great MarioAnnicchiarico explains in the Victoria Times-Colonist, two-time defending champion Jim Cotter was defeated on Friday leaving rookies to battle for the Hearts.

Longtime bridesmaid Brent Pierce is one of the teams still fighting.

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If you’d bet on the final four teams at the Dominion Tankard in Ontario, you probably would have picked the four that made it – Frans, Howard, Epping and Rumfeldt – but perhaps not how the lined up.

Frans finished on top and will face Howard in the 1-2 game while Epping and Rumfeldt face off in the 3-4 contest.

Everything changed for Frans after he edged Howard in the round robin, as the Barrie Examiner explains:

But when they wenthead-to-head, Frans and his rink turned it around. He never trailed in thatgame, and he picked up a steal of two in the eighth end to clinch an 8-3victory over Howard.From then on in, Franswas untouchable, winning a total of seven games in a row to finish round-robinplay at 8-2.Frans, who curls out ofthe Bradford Curling Club but lives in Erin, has a chance to return to thefinals for the second straight year, after having played second for Team Cornerlast year.

All the playoff action gets underway today in an area digging out from the Snow-mageddon that hit Eastern Canada yesterday.

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 In Manitoba it’s the regular suspects leading the way with Jeff Stoughton and Mike McEwen and Rob Fowler et al moving on to the playoff round.

As Paul Wiecek explains, it’s the 49-year-old Stoughton who is leading the way so far with a dominating performance.

With two more victories here on Friday -- 9-5 over Dave Elias Friday morning to qualify for the playoff round and then 9-2 over Steen Sigurdson in the opening round of the playoffs last night -- Stoughton improved to a perfect 4-0 and has now outscored his opponents in Neepawa by a combinied score of 36-11. 

Consider: Stoughton has scored 9 points in each of his four victories this week -- he’s won 9-2 three times and 9-5 once; and he’s yet to even play a 10-end game -- his opponents have quit after six ends once, seven ends twice, and nine ends once.

Put it altogether, and it’s become crystal clear this week why Stoughton’s opponents annointed him the number one seed coming into this event.

Cliche alert: Brad Jacobs leads in Northern Ontario and other playdown news

Brad Jacobs is the clear favourite in the Northern Ontario playdowns and he heads into Friday's play at 4-0. He has three games, including a 7 p.m. match-up with veteran Al Hackner. He told the Sault Star that wasn't looking ahead to that game yet, preferring to . . . well . . . you know. 

“We'd love to clinch (today), that'd be great,” Jacobs said. “But our goal is still to take one game at a time. We know we're going into our longest day. We have to stay patient and stay in the moment.”

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To the south, and Glenn Howard's team lost another match, this time to the unheralded Darryl Prebble. that dropped Howard to 7-2 and into a tie with Joe Frans, who, let's not forget defeated Howard earlier, meaning first place isn't a lock for the reigning world champs. 

Meanwhile John Epping is hanging around, a game back. His rink, which brought in spare Greg Balsdon to fill in for the ailing Scott Howard yesterday, has been dubbed the heir apparent to Howard in a nice piece in the Barrie Examiner. 

Epping, who is one of those guys sports writers love because he doesn't offer up cliches, had a good observation of his team at this point: 

“Yeah, and I think that’s the thing,” said skip John Epping. “The only thing we lack is the consistency, where we can lose to anybody, but still be able to beat anybody.”

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In N+L, Brad Gushue is on top -- surprise, surprise -- after a win over Colin Thomas. The youthful Thomas admitted to the Telegram that playing against the gold medal winner was a wee bit nerve-wracking. 

“You don’t get to play Brad Gushue every day, but I tried to keep my cool… at least on the outside,” said Thomas who added his entire rink responded well to the pressure.

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In Alberta, the battle of the balding skips Kevins was won by the elder statesman, Martin, who defeated Koe and earned a spot -- and last rock -- in the 1-2 Page game, with an A-final victory. Koe wasn't ready to throw in the towel just yet, but told the Edmonton Journal that it is significant.

“For sure, it’s not life or death, but since they’ve gone to this format, whoever has come out of A has always won,” defending champion Koe said before playing Martin in the provincial A Event final for the third straight year.“That just shows it’s a pretty significant advantage to get your choice of rocks and start with hammer in that 1-2 game,” Koe continued. “It’s a big game, for sure.”

Martin, by the way, barely escaped his A-semi game over Jamie King, who Koe will face in his next game.

“The big thing is getting the hammer in the 1-2 game, and they have to get past Jamie King somehow,” said Martin, who was badly outplayed by King and fortunate to beat the Saville Centre team with former world champions Blake MacDonald and Scott Pfeifer 7-6 in an extra end in the A semifinals.

14-0 win shows silly rules in Alberta

When is enough enough? Apparently the Alberta curling officials don’t know.

A rule in place that forces teams to play a minimum of six ends was shown to be painful on Wednesday at the opening round of the Boston Pizza Cup when Kevin Koe beat Matthew Blandford 14-0 in six ends. That's right. . . 14-0.

Norm Cowley of the Edmonton Journal has the deets:

 The reigning Alberta men’s curling champion scored three points in the first end, then stole 11 unanswered points until Calgary’s Matthew Blandford was finally allowed to shake hands with the score 14-0 after six ends Wednesday night at Sobeys Arena in the Leduc Recreation Centre. 

“It’s a dumb rule,” said Koe, whose Calgary Glencoe Club rink of Pat Simmons, Carter Rycroft and Nolan Thiessen was voted the No. 1 seed in the provincial championship.
  

“I don’t know why it’s in there. It’s no fun for the players and it can’t be fun for the fans,” he said. “I can see if it’s on TV, but there’s no reason at all for a rule when you can’t quit whenever you want.” 

The embarrassment of the Blandford team was evident in this Tweet from third Evan Asmussen.

If we played team Nunavut for a spot at nationals we might just lose....probably #bwd #BPCup #oilpatch
— Evan Asmussen (@evs_evs) February 7, 2013

You can follow the action here: 

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 Glenn Howard suffered his first defeat on Wednesday but came up big in the big game of the week, knocking off John Epping 6-4 in the evening draw. Steve Green of the London Free Press has the story (and big kudos to the Freep for its coverage).

 “That was a huge game for us,” Glenn Howard said. “You get to that two-loss column and with Joe (Frans) beating us earlier today, it gets a bit tricky. But now we control our own destiny.” 

 The contest pitted the top two teams in the Dominion Tankard, but also father and son, as Glenn played Scott. However that only lasted half the game as Scott was forced to leave in the fifth end after a groin injury.

 “It was great playing Scott; I just feel bad about what happened and I hope he’s healthy for the rest of the week.”
 Scott Howard said his status for Thursday is uncertain.
 “I probably did the right thing in pulling myself from the game,” he said. “I mean, it’s a big game but it’s not the final. And the medical team here is fantastic; they’re doing a great job.” 

 Howard remains in top spot with just one loss while Joe Frans, who knocked of Howard earlier in the day is in second with a 5-2 mark. His rink won three times Wednesday.

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 Great to see the top juniors in the land fighting it out up in Fort Mac and we have to give a big shout-out to Manitoba’s Shannon Birchard for locking up a playoff spot at the M+M Meats Canadian Junior, something she’s hoping to improve on today, she told Canadian Press.

 “It’s a great feeling and hopefully we can keep winning tomorrow and get to that first spot,” said Birchard, referring to the first-place bye to Sunday’s championship final. “It’s definitely nice to get that rest and not have to play that extra game. It’s good to have the time off to relax because this week is very long and tiring.”

Now if you’ve curled around Ontario for any length of time and that last name rings a bell, it’s because Shannon’s grandfather is none other than the legendary Peter Birchard, longtime competitive curler and co-publisher of the Ontario Curling Report. Good genes we say.

There's even a Lego Vic Rauter!

Some people love curling, I mean really, really love curling. Add David MacDonald to that list. He built a replica of a major curling championship, complete with fans, umpires, and yes, even a replica TSN broadcast crew. You can see the video of this amazing creation, which will be traveling to the Scotties and the Brier, here. Teacher combines love of Lego, sport in curling creation | CTV Atlantic News

Blame Jill Officer for that snowstorm

Jill Officer stepped in to give the weather on the local Global station and predicted a major snowstorm, freezing rain, locusts. . . . the whole nine yards. Actually, she was pretty smooth in telling all the folks in Winkler and Churchill that they'll be freezing their butts off.

Nedohin out on a limb with predictions

Dave Nedohin apparently isn't a guy to bet on a long shot. When asked by the Edmonton Journal's Norm Cowley who would win the Alberta men's playdowns, the former world champion laid it all on the line:

“One of the two will win,” predicted Nedohin, whose rink was eliminated quickly in the city playdown last month. “The amount that they play and as good as they are right now, I don’t think that there’s any other team that could get through both of them.

Of course the curler-turned-HOC (that would be Husband Of Curler), was speaking of Kevin Martin and Kevin Koe, who are ranked 1-2 respectively in the Boston Pizza Cup which starts today in Leduc. And there aren't many who would argue with his choices.

Nedohin provides good insight into the remaining teams and why he doesn't think they'll be buying any purple thread this year.

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Meanwhile in Ontario, Glenn Howard kept his win streak intact with Tuesday victories over Pat Ferris and Howard Rajala. The first contest lasted just five ends and ended with a 9-1 thumping. Over the first three contests, Team Howard outscored its opponents 24-4 and only had to go 19 ends.

In the evening contest against the veteran Ottawa four, Howard actually had to play his last shot in earning a 6-5 decision. There's more on the day's action here.

Howard plays three games today including an evening match against John Epping, who, if this event was actually run like a championship from this decade, would be the second seed.

Howard off and running at Dominion Tankard

The Ontario Dominion Tankard got underway on Monday in Barrie with a nice opening ceremonies that included honouring past Ontario world champions. It was especially nice to see Neil Harrison and Ed Werenich in the house. Also there were Paul Savage, Ian Tetley, Pat Perroud, Kent Carstairs and Tim Belcourt.

Glenn Howard started strong on the opening day, posting two wins that were conceded after seven ends. There appeared to be a bit of adjusting to the rocks as there were some glaring misses from players, including Howard how came well short on a couple of draws.

The Howard rink, of course, is the favourite, going for its eighth straight Ontario crown. The Barrie Examiner did a nice preview of the competition, focusing on the almost-local boys and the record run:

“To continue any streak in sports is really tough,” Howard said. “Obviously, to win two, three or four in a row is impressive, but to win seven, I just can’t believe we’ve done it.”

Howard also said he's expecting to know almost everyone who comes to watch, seeing as he's just 30 minutes up the road:

“As the crowds get bigger and bigger, I’m probably going to know three-quarters or four-fifths of the people here,” Howard said. “I have a lot of family and friends coming down from Penetang and Midland, and from pretty much anywhere in Simcoe County.“Again, I was ecstatic when I found out that it was here in Barrie, and I think you’re going to see that it’s going to be one of the best-attended events that we’ve ever had.”

In the London Free Press, Steve Green offered up a nice look at the Wayne Tuck Jr. rink, which was Howard's first victim in the opening draw, but came back with a win last night. Pre-tournament, Tuck did comment on the difficulty of playing against Howard.

“As long as your team is curling minimum 85%, you’ve got at least a 50-50 shot, because they don’t normally curl below 90,” Tuck said.

Yup. And sometimes even that doesn't work.