 Saskatoon's Mike McEwen (photo: Curling Canada) earned a hard fought win against a tough young opponent in his first game at the 2025 Montana's Canadian Curling Trials Nov. 22 in Halifax, NS. By Meredith McCullum In Draw 2 of the Trials (the first game for the men), veteran Mike McEwen faced off against 22-year-old Jordon McDonald. McDonald, who is backed by Jacques Gauthier, Elias Huminicki and Cam Olafson, opened the scoring by splitting a tight guard into the rings to score 2 points. McEwen, alongside teammates Colton Flasch, Kevin Marsh and Dan Marsh, bounced back with a deuce of his own in the second. The two teams traded singles for the next four ends, making the score 4-4 after six ends. McDonald had hammer in a messy seventh end, with nine rocks in the rings going into McEwen's final shot. After McEwen threw a peel weight hit, leaving himself sitting 3 in the four-foot, McDonald had an all or nothing around-the-horn hit to score. He threw it perfectly and made the shot, getting himself out of trouble and taking the 5-4 lead going into eight. The eighth and ninth ends saw blanks from McEwen. In the tenth, McDonald came up short on a freeze to McEwen's shot rock in the back eight foot, leaving McEwen a draw anywhere full eight-foot for the win. McEwen made no mistake, securing his first win at the Trials. "I know I left a lot of points on the board personally," said McEwen postgame, on his teams performance. "Pretty straightforward shot for three earlier on. Another shot in eight where I left him a double that I shouldn't have left him. So, unfortunately, I didn't perform like I would have liked to tonight...So, there's lots of room for improvement." This is McEwen's fourth Olympic Trials. He showed his experience in his opening win, staying composed as McDonald made multiple end saving shots, preventing McEwen from scoring a big end to open the game up. Despite falling short of the upset in their Trials debut, all four players on McDonald's Winnipeg, Man. based squad made tough shots when they needed to and showed other teams that they are here to play. "I mean, this is what we want to see in Canadian curling," said McEwen on McDonald's performance. "Young 20-year-olds getting this opportunity...Jordan and his team, they're players. I'm excited to see what they can do. If he wants it, I think he's got a great future ahead of him." In other draw 2 action, Brad Gushue (1-0) defeated Rylan Kleiter (0-1) 11-5 in front of an electric crowd chanting his name. Matt Dunstone (1-0) beat John Epping (0-1) 6-3, and Kevin Koe (1-0) stole the win away from Brad Jacobs (0-1) in the final end, winning that matchup 6-5. The next games for the men begin at Nov. 23 at 2 p.m. AST with Jacobs facing Kleiter, Koe facing Gushue, Epping facing McEwen and McDonald facing Dunstone. TSN will broadcast the games with scores and standings available at curlingzone.com. For ticket information, team lineups and the schedule, go to the event website: www.curling.ca/2025trials/ |
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Calgary's Brad Jacobs (Photo: Curling Canada/Andrew Klaver) defeats Winnipeg's Matt Dunstone 6-5, winning 2 games to 0 in a best-of-three final at the Montana's Canadian Olympic Curling Trials in Halifax, N.
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