 Sudbury's Team John Epping (Photo: Anil Mungal/GSOC) sit atop "Pool Canada" after two games. By: Cameron Sallaj Playing in his hometown of Toronto, John Epping and his Sudbury based squad are off to a perfect start at the 2025 AMJ Players' Championship with two wins to begin the competition. After taking down the Brier champion Brad Jacobs 8-1 in Draw 1, the team took on Saskatchewan's Mike McEwen in Wednesday mornings Draw 4. There was no shortage of scoring in the first half between the number 6 and 10 ranked teams in the world with both teams scoring a pair of deuces to sit 4-4 at the break. With hammer, the McEwen rink then blanked five before being forced to one in six. In seven, Epping continued the multi-point streak with a third count of two, vaulting his team of Ian McMillan and Jacob and Tanner Horgan into the lead for the first time. This gave the Ontario squad a narrow 6-5 edge coming home with McEwen holding the all-important last rock. Facing a pair of McEwen counters in the four-foot on his last, Epping executed an angle raise to move his stone into scoring position. Attempting an in-off for the win, McEwen's rock grazed the Epping shot rock but did not remove it from scoring position, allowing the Sudbury rink to escape with a close 7-5 win in their second game of the event. It's been an impressive season for the Epping rink who began the season ranked 34th. On tour, the team picked up five titles in twelve events played, including wins in Toronto, Collingwood, Arizona, Kitchener-Waterloo and Duluth. After winning the Northern Ontario provincial championship, the team fell just short of the playoffs at the Montana's Brier with a 6-2 record, proving they will be a top contender for the Olympic Trials in November. The next challenge for Team John Epping will be a rematch against Team Brad Gushue (1-0; St. John's, NL) at 7:30 pm ET Wednesday night. Gushue beat Epping in the round robin of the Brier and was one of the two losses that caused them to miss the playoff round. Now 1-1, Team McEwen look to get back on track in their next game at 11:30 am ET Thursday, also against Team Gushue. Pool B in the men's division is rounded out by the rest of the Canadian teams in Jacobs and Dunstone as well as Italy's Joel Retornaz. Elsewhere in Draw 4, world champions Team Bruce Mouat (2-0; Stirling, SCO) continued to roll by taking down Team Korey Dropkin (0-2; Duluth, MN) 5-1. The Scotts have been on the ice everyday since the world championship began last week and seem to have no plans on slowing down. Two upsets in the women's division saw Japan's Sayaka Yoshimura and Momoha Tabata both record their first wins of the event. Yoshimura doubled the count on Team Rachel Homan (1-1; Ottawa, ON) 8-4 while Tabata stole two in eight to clip Team Satsuki Fujisawa (0-2; Kitami, JPN) 7-5. It's just the seventh loss of the season for the Homan Empire and fifth against international teams. The next draw from the 2025 AMJ Players' Championship gets underway at 11:30 am ET with streaming of every game available on HomeTeamLive. |
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