McEWEN WINS AGAIN!
The highlight men's event for Week # 8 on the World Curling Tour was the Canad Inns Men's Curling Classic. The event has been won by Team Mike McEwen 3 of the last 4 years.
Make that 4 of the last 5 years!!! Team Mike McEwen earns their 3rd event win of the season in as many events winning the Canad Inns Men's Curling Classic in Portage la Prairie MB. McEwen won their 1st game, then lost their 2nd game dropping them to the B event. From there, they beat some world class teams such as including Brad Jacobs, John Epping, and Steve Laycock to qualify B-side!
In the playoffs, they won a quarterfinal battle against Morozumi of Japan by a score of 8-6. In the semis, McEwen defeated Willie Lyburn 7-2.
In the finals, McEwen played Kevin Koe. Koe got off to an early lead with a deuce in the 1st and a steal of one in the 2nd to go up 3-0. McEwen came back in the 3rd end with a 3 of their own after a couple of uncharacteristic misses by Team Koe. In the 4th end, McEwen forced the issue and stole a 2 to take a 5-3 lead. After a blank in the 5th end, Koe went for a double takeout in the 6th end to score 3 and take the lead, but he missed and scored only 1. McEwen took 1 in the 7th to lead 6-4 going to the 8th end. Koe got some rocks in play, but McEwen 3rd BJ Neufeld made a spectacular double takeout to end any threat and Team McEwen went on to the win!
After 3 events, Team McEwen's record is a spectacular 21 wins and only 1 loss. Up next for them is the Gatineau event Oct 24-27, and then the first Grand Slam event of the year in Selkirk the weekend after that!
TEAM HARDLINE RECAP
The Canad Inns Men's Classic was a first for Team Hardline. Of the 31 teams playing the event, Hardline was represented by SIX teams - Mike McEwen, Reid Carruthers, Brock Virtue, John Shuster, Steve Irwin, and playing in their first event with the icePad was Jared Kolomaya. Carruthers, Virtue, and Kolomaya made it to "C" event qualifier games, with Kolomaya winning and qualifying for playoffs! A nice start with the icePad for Kolomaya! After losing the quarterfinals to Glenn Howard, Kolomaya took to Twitter and wrote:
In Kamloops BC, Team Dean Joanisse and Team Grant Dezura both qualified for playoffs in the Hub International Crown of Curling event. Joanisse lost the quarterfinals to eventual winner Brent Pierce, and Dezura lost the semifinals to Dean Geall. Great showing for two Hardline teams!
Over in Europe, Team Silvana Tirinzoni played in the European curling trials to represent Switzerland in the European Championships. Tirinzoni qualified for the best of 3 finals against Binia Feltscher, but lost the finals. Next up for Tirinzoni is the Grand Slam MASTERS event in Selkirk MB October 28-November 2nd.
