Record-tying game keeps Saskatchewan alive at the Brier

Saskatchewan’s Mike McEwen stayed alive at the 2024 Montana’s Brier on Friday night with a 7-0 win over Jamie Koe of the Northwest Territories at the Brandt Centre.

A loss would have eliminated McEwen from the Canadian men’s curling championship. Instead, he and his Saskatoon Nutana team of Colton Flasch, Kevin Marsh and Dan Marsh advanced to the 3-4 Page playoff game against Manitoba’s Matt Dunstone.

McEwen needs to win that game as well as the semifinal Sunday afternoon to reach Sunday night’s final. Saskatchewan is trying to end a 44-year title drought at the Brier.

Though the game was a shutout, McEwen said it’s important to separate the result from the performance.

“Yes, we won 7-0 but there are still things to tighten up … We gave Jamie opportunities, to be quite honest, but fortunately he didn’t convert on any of them,” explained McEwen.

He said the team didn’t have the weight control it would have liked and struggled when the ice didn’t break in as quickly as it had in the afternoon.

Dunstone — a former Saskatchewan skip — downed Manitoba’s Reid Carruthers 6-2 in the other 3-4 qualifier Friday evening. The 3-4 Page playoff game is to be played Saturday at 1 p.m.

McEwen finished first in Pool B with a 7-1 round-robin record, but lost 9-7 to Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher in a 1-2 qualifying game Friday afternoon.

Saskatchewan got off to a bit of a rough start against Koe with a missed bump from McEwen, managing just one point with hammer in the first end.

But the team in green eked out a series of single steals in each of the next four ends off near-misses from Koe.

Koe made a wide-open hit at the end of the sixth and rolled out to blank, but that only paused Saskatchewan’s stealing streak.

In the seventh end, Koe tried a runback to score two, but it missed and Saskatchewan stole another point.

In the eighth, Koe made a hit and roll with his first shot, rolling between two red stones for cover and backing. But McEwen managed to bump his front red into shot position and Koe missed the hit on his last shot.

That prompted the Northwest Territories team to shake hands to end the game.

The Brandt Centre was fairly full for the evening game and McEwen said it was nice to see.

“That’s all you can ask for as an athlete. That’s exciting; it doesn’t get any better than that,” he said.

With six, McEwen’s rink tied the Brier record for steals in a game.

McEwen said after the game he’s very excited to be playing Saturday.

“(It’s) not quite how we drew it up, (we) would have loved to win this one earlier today, but we’re still breathing and that’s all you can ask for right now,” he said.

“(It’s) not too far, right? Just three more (games to win), but we’ll just worry about one at a time.”