 WATCH NOW: Calgary's Brad Jacobs faces Scotland's Ross Whyte in Wednesday evening draw. By now, we've all seen the commercial where Brad offers up fire-fighter training to coach Paul Webster and leads Ben Hebert to understand he could use a little work on conflict management. Third Marc Kennedy, and second Brett Gallant are also offered up training courses through Astec Safety. The story behind this relationship is very new to the sport, only coming together a couple of years ago when Jeff Mulligan and his daughter Caitlin Mulligan of Astec Satefy met Hebert and Kennedy at the Champions Cup Grand Slam event in Olds, Alberta, in May 2022. From the meeting, a relationship formed that saw Astec Safety partner with Team Bottcher at the time, coming on board as a major sponsor. Jacobs replaced Brendan Bottcher this past offseason. Another component of the partnership was bringing a major tour event back to Lloydminster, longtime home of the Wayside Classic that last ran in 2008 when Kevin Martin captured the title. The event's $125,000 prize purse is the sport's largest outside the Montana's Brier, the Scotties and Grand Slam events. Hebert previously spearheaded the relationship with another team sponsor, ATB Financial, to launch spiels during the 2020/21 pandemic season, with the birth of the ATB Okotoks Classic and the ATB Banff Classic at the time. In this the second year of the Astec Safety Challenge, most of the game's top men's teams are competing this week at the Lloydminster Curling Club on the Saskatchewan side of the border for the title and will head straight to Guelph, Ontario, for next week's Grand Slam of Curling event. Of course, hosting an event is one thing, and for Jacobs and his squad, they're off on a strong start at their own evnet, winning X-X over James Ballance in the opening draw. Jacobs returns to the ice on Wednesday evening, taking on Scotland's Ross Whyte in an A-event semifinal, where the winning team will advance to a qualifying against Brad Gushue (St. John's) or Scott Howard (Penetanguishene). Three teams advance to Saturday's playoff round through the A-event bracket, with three more teams coming through the B-event bracket and two more through the C-event bracket. |
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Saskatoon's Mike McEwen (photo: Anil Mungal, GSOC) won 6-2 over Winnipeg's Jordon McDonald in a tuneup for upcoming Montana's Brier.
