Well – welcome to “Moving Day” at the Brier (for those of us who live inside the Metro Centre) and for the rest of the normal world outside the Brier it is just regular “Hump Day”.  Sitting here at the start of the evening draw trying to type and keep track of the games in front of me at the same time. But then again, that is what we women do – multi task – especially yours truly.

It is an incredibly beautiful day here in Halifax – bright sunshine, moderate temperature, and spring is in the air. And inside these lovely elliptical walls, the bright lights of the arena once again welcomed to warriers to the Coliseum to do battle.

And for one team at least, the lions were very hungry. Saskatchewan and British Columbia met in the battle of the bottom half – where there might be a very remote outside wacky chance that 5 losses might give you a sniff of a tiebreaker.  Well the boys in green and white were out for blood from the start taking 5 points over the first 3 ends. Trying to sneak back in, Jeff Richard took a lonely little 1 (well, it is the lonliest number, isn’t it?) in the 4th end. Darrell came back with an answer of 2 in the 5th but didn’t have to throw his last rock in the 7th end as BC extended hands in defeat. The final ribbing was 7-3 and BC sinks to 6 losses.

PEI and Nova Scotia met in their yearly Maritime Classic and from early on, Ian Fitzner-LeBlanc took command with a chunky 3 in the first end. The game was fairly evenly balanced throughout the mid section but in the 8th end, Roddy MacDonald cracks open yet another 3 ender. (This scoring of 3 in the 8th end is becoming an interesting phenomenon in this Brier – I was chalking it up to the salt water but this shouldn’t affect PEI and NS – we have it in our pores!!)

Ian shook off this hit and rebounded with a well played 9th end and took 2 points to tie. Coming home, Ian is plays an in house guard of his counter on the four foot and Roddy has to make a double on his last. He can even afford to double and fly due to a back stone counter. However, his throw is slightly wide, only hits one (which jams on the back PEI stone), and he rolls out. Steal of 2 for NS and another win to keep their other win company.  Final score? 10-8 for the BlueNosers.

Quebec and Alberta are squaring off against each other on Sheet D. Kevin Koe seemed to have the upper hand of this game even though the score was only 5-4 for the boys from the Saville Sports Centre in Edmonton. And the all important steal of 2 in the 8th end seemed to seal the fate of Quebec. Quebec to their credit played an excellent game curling at 82% (Alberta’s average was 89 with Nolan Theissen curling an almost perfect game at 96 to maintain his rank at the top of the Lead category).

And the game that the majority of the fans turned out to watch was the much anticipated Ontario/Newfoundland/Labrador match-up. And Brad and Glenn did not disappoint the crowd. The first of 2-3 enders happend in the 5th end and again in the 7th for Ontario (so very much “ON” in this game). Gushue struggled back with a count of 1 in the 8th but in the 9th, Brad’s last rock just ticks a rock on the 8ft and rolls to the side of the 4 ft. NL is still shot but is tucked back behind two yellow Ontario rocks. Glenn’s gentle tapback creates a score of 2 and it is game over.  The record shows it as 9-5 and yet another win for front leading Ontario – and  Gushue goes to 6-2.

Draw #13 – well, I have to admit I had to skip this draw to go do my real job for the afternoon!  So here are some highlights that jump off the pages of the stats reports. And to be honest there really wasn’t that much exciting in the games to write home about (whoops, I am home……..sorry).

The Nova Scotia/Northern Ontario game was over after only 7 ends with a score of 7-2. Fitzner-LeBlanc seemed overwhelmed with the hot firing boys from the Soo. After taking 1 point with hammer, Brad Jacobs managed steals of 2, then 1, then another 1 before permitting young Ian one point in the 5th end. Yet another 2 in the 6th just took all the stuffing out of our hometown team and scoring another 1 in the 7th was all for the pride of the team.  And Northern Ontario matches their standing with the final score!

Kevin Koe came out firing against James Grattan, not wanting a repeat of his last meeting of a Maritime team (NS). With the score 6-1 after 6 ends, James managed a 1 and a steal of 1 in the 8th before packing it in and shaking hands before another big end was concluded. Final here is 6-3 and  they go to 7-2 on the leaderboard.

Jeff Richard came out on the ice in Draw #13 to make a statement and unfortunately it was Jamie Koe that took the brunt of the charge.  A huge 5 ender was scored in the 4th end and then consequtive steals in ends 5 and 6 was just too much to handle. Again, they have to play a minimum of 7 ends and to Jamie’s credit he did score 1 in the 7th – but it was Keith’s time after this 10-4 routing.

And the last match was the most interesting between Gushue and Manitoba – the second of two big games on this second last day of the Brier round robin for Team Newfoundland/Labrador. Unike their morning outing, Brad, Mark, Ryan, and Jamie played a well paced game. The all important steal of 1 in the fifth seemed to give them the momentum to keep pushing. Team percentages for NL were impressive with an average of 86. Manitoba certainly wasn’t shabby at 81% but the difference was the face-to-face match-up between Brad and Jeff. And it definitely was not even – Brad shot 90% and Jeff was below the curve with 68%. With the final 5-3 and last rocks not thrown in the 10th, this was a hugely significant game on Moving Day for both teams.

With happy clients (from real job…), I head back to the arena for Draw #14. And walking in to see the 1st ends up on the scoreboards, I do a double take.  There were three 4’s scored – looked like someone was stuttering numbers. Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba were out of the gate early and looking to shut their opposition down early.

In Ontario’s case, it definitely worked. Although Jeff came back with steals of 1 in ends #3 and #4, it wasn’t enough to stop the Ontario machine. In the 7th and final end, Jeff’s last rock was to be an angle tap to be shot and it was unsuccessful. With another 2 lumped onto the pile, Jeff offered up the white flag to the conquerer and the title of 9-0 was handed to Ontario.

Saskatchewan was throwing in fine style and managed to dump a 5 ender on the beleagured and battle weary Jamie Koe team in the 8th end.  In fact in the 6th end, Jamie Koe took himself out of the game and fifth player Jon Solberg took his place at skip. Jon did manage to add a take of 1 and another steal of 1 but the stuffing was spilling out and they just couldn’t take it anymore. The final on this was 13-4

James Grattan and Quebec was a great game – Serge Reid at 3 losses going into this match was expected to win over the NB boys who had been struggling. However they got shown the door by the black and gold as the 4 in the 1st end was a slap in the face. Quebec could just not recover from this and the game ended in the 7th before James could throw his last rock – 7-2 was defeating and deflating at the same time.

And the best game out there was NONT and PEI – came down to the 10th end last rock with Brad scoring 2 to win for a final of 7-6. Rod MacDonald played so well – the entire team did with an average of 80%. But it just wasn’t any stopping the SOO train – especially with proud Papa sitting in the stands (Al Harnden).  Now NONT  is at 7-2 in the pack at the top – great dark horse!

Well, I am not the last one in the arena tonight – some of the ice maintenance team are out throwing rocks – nice to have company!  But the texts from the Patch are coming in fast and furious - “ Where are you??!!” so gotta go.

Meg Wallace
CurlingZone.com