On the Rest of the Playdowns

My shortest newsletter ever?

Well, well curling fans, we are two days out from the start of the Scotties (probably one by the time you read this—I do my best newsletter work late at night) and I’m going to be doing some fun stuff for Curling Canada this week, so keep your eyes peeled!

In the meantime, since my last newsletter, a few more teams rounded out the Brier field, and I have a few words on each of the provinces that were left. It has the potential to be my shortest newsletter ever. Let’s go!

Saskatchewan

We’ll start with the provincial that happened two weeks ago, which saw Mike McEwen run his favourite status all the way to a Saskatchewan title with an undefeated record, making him the first skip to wear three different provinces on his back at a Brier. For a guy who took so long to win his first one, it is ironic that he’s the first to wear three different ones, and no one would ever argue it’s not well-deserved for one of the best players of this generation. AND this time, he’ll be the home team in Regina (though I think Catlin Schneider—and Team BC by proxy—will also have some pretty solid support).

One thing was evident watching the Saskatchewan provincials: Mike is comfortable. Obviously enough words were spoken and written on the (mostly) disaster year Mike had last year, where nothing really worked until the Ontario playdowns and Brier, and by then, it was too late. Mike has always thrived playing with quieter players, as his near-decade with the Neufelds and Matt Wozniak can attest, and he has that for the first time in five years with this squad.

Yes, Colton can speak up from time-to-time, but much like BJ, he speaks when needed, and he isn’t in the house so that limits his conversations with Mike anyway. Anyone who knows the Marsh Twins knows they are lovely guys who aren’t going to upset the apple cart, and I know Mike pretty well: this is a Mike that’s firing. He looked calm and confident all playdowns long, and has quietly played his team into the #6 spot on the CTRS rankings, with all the teams above AND 13 spots below him having a lineup that either fully played together last year, or only replaced one player. You have to go to Tanner Horgan at #20 to find a team with two different players from last season. Mike has 3. Yes, Flasch and the Marshes played together the last few seasons, but bringing in a new skip is a totally new equation. The fact this lineup has gelled and gotten better over the course of the season only bodes well for them. And look, Saskatchewan isn’t the powerhouse it used to be, but Rylan Kleiter is a strong team that had a great season and Team McEwen looked like a different class in the final. Looking forward to seeing what they do at the Brier.

Manitoba

Why not take the time to pop over to Manitoba, Mike’s old stomping grounds, where it was a familiar name that emerged from the weekend as the champion, but a lot of interesting storylines abounded underneath.

We’ll start with Team Carruthers Jacobs, who I must admit, did not look as comfortable as most of us expected them to. Their top competitors on the weekend were either very young (McDonald/Wiebe), with new lineups (Calvert), or outright surprising (the 216th-ranked Jeff Stewart). They managed to pull it out, and it felt like their championship pedigree that did it, as Braden Calvert actually finished the weekend with less losses than Carruthers (they were undefeated until the final, whereas Carruthers lost in the opening 32-team double KO and the 1-2 game to Calvert), but Calvert’s wheels came off in the end of that game, and Carruthers played a nearly perfect 10th end to put the game to bed. It definitely feels as though this team is still getting used to Brad throwing the brick, but you bet against Brad at the Brier at your own peril.

As for Calvert, they’ll feel hard done by as Corey Chambers seemed to be the right back-end mix for Braden, but it’s so hard to compete against a team regularly competing in Slams when you only leave the province twice in a season. Any team with Braden throwing last will have a chance to win Manitoba, and as long as they keep knocking on the door, it’ll get answered one of these times.

And how about Jordon McDonald? What a coming out party for that young man and his squad of still-eligible-for-juniors players. First of all, he nearly made one of the shots of the century against Reid in the playoff round (which would’ve beaten Reid and forced them into a must-win bracket), and then in the semifinals against Carruthers, were absolutely dynamite. They weren’t afraid of any shot, didn’t seem at all cowed by the moment, and carried themselves with ultimate poise. It was a pleasure to watch and I’m sure most of us will be keenly paying attention to them at the Canadian Juniors this year as a result.

Alberta

My first provincials watching as an Albertan did not disappoint, as Aaron Sluchinski beat Kevin Koe TWICE en route to a well-deserved championship. When I was coming up in curling, someone once told me one of the hardest things to do is to beat a really good team twice in the same championship. And look, Team Sluchinski has had an amazing season, and would’ve known around the 5th end of the Alberta final that they had a wild card spot wrapped up with the Carruthers win. But it’s still Kevin Koe, he’s had a fantastic season, is just coming off a win at a Slam-level field in Lloydminster, and beating him twice is no easy feat. But they did it, and the performance in the finals was especially impressive, as they scored 2 in the first and then never once looked like relinquishing control of the game.

The biggest moment for me with Sluchinski on the weekend, however, wasn’t in the final, but in the 1-2 game. In the 10th end, leading 4-2 without hammer, Kevin Koe was really building something. A 3 and the win was absolutely in play, and if you know anything about Kevin Koe, you know he’s the guy that can make the big shot at the end to cap a 3-ball. But Aaron made a perfect corner freeze on his first and a dynamite 2-foot tap on his next one to make Kevin’s last shot nearly impossible. I’ll tell you this: those are the shots that win championships. In golf, they say you drive for show and putt for dough. In curling, you hit for show and you draw for dough and those two draws were the absolute championship-calibre shots you need to have as a skip to win big tournaments. They haven’t had the best Slam season but it was hard watching that and not thinking that they could be a factor at the Brier.

As for Koe, it felt a little to me as though they played as a team that knew the last wild card slot was theirs before the week started. They were in a similar scenario last year and beat Brendan Bottcher in the final to secure their Brier berth, so I’m not saying that a lack of motivation crept in or anything, but it seemed as though Sluchinski played those weekend games like there was more on the line for them. They play each other in the first game of the Brier, and I’m very interested to see how that one goes.

New Brunswick

And finally, James Grattan won New Brunswick. As I said with regards to the Koe twins winning the Northwest Territories…water is wet. One note, though: that W had to feel pretty good for Joel Krats. Cut from last year’s Owen Purcell team that probably should’ve won the Nova Scotia final (they missed a pretty makeable shot on Owen’s last to give Matthew Manuel a steal and the Brier berth), he moved a province over to play with the wily veteran James Grattan and he is off to the Brier, while Purcell again lost the Nova Scotia final to Manuel (this time, a little more convincingly—an 8-2 win for Manuel).

All of this isn’t to pick on Team Purcell, decisions like this get made all the time in curling—it’s the very nature of our sport. It’s a dance that many teams are about to do (or maybe have already done) as playdowns season wraps up and only so many teams can make it to The Show. It’s more to highlight that while you may get cut from a team, sometimes it works out in your favour, and Joel’s a great person and player and I’ll be excited to see him at the Brier.

Alright that’s it! It’s time for me to pack up and head to the Scotties (sorta. It’s a 20-minute drive from my house). I’m looking forward to being in the building for my first-ever time at a Canadian national curling championship, and I’ll look forward to bringing you as much coverage as I can. A lot of it will be on my Twitter, so if you’re not already following me there, head on over to @cullenoncurling. You can also expect to see some stuff from Curling Canada’s socials. Exciting! Thanks for reading.