 Winnipeg's Jordon McDonald (Photo: Michael Burns, Curling Canada) is making waves early this season on Tour. Winning the U25 NextGen Classic to launch your season. Check. Go deep into the playoffs at the Saville Shootout. Check. Now, McDonald and his team of Dallas Burgess, elias Huminicki and Cameron Olafson are playing with house money after their 13th-seeded "longshot" took down the 4th-ranked Matt Dunstone Wednesday evening. "I think our team has grown a lot over the last couple of years," said McDonald earlier this season. "One of the biggest things for us is our team chemistry. We're all super close friends, so we get along well, and that translates into us working well together on the ice." "Our team is also very fortunate to have had some junior nationals experience and playing in big games, so it has definitely helped with playing loose and being comfortable in some of these bigger events." McDonald went to work early, taking the pre-game draw to the button challenge to begin the game with hammer. McDonald blanked the first three ends, though struggled in the fourth end, giving up a steal of two when McDonald's last rock overcurled. The steal didn't slow McDonald, as the team rebounded with three points in the fifth end. Dunstone hit for two points in the sixth end to take a 4-3 lead. In the seventh end end, McDonald made another big shot with his first skip rock, leaving Dunstone a thin double to get out of the end. The thin double rubbed the guard instead, getting fortunate to still remove one of McDonald's two shot stones. McDonald drew to replace it, adding 2 to the scoreboard. Looking at another multiple point score in the eighth end, Dunstone the first to blink when their last rock overcurled and the team settled for a single point to even the score at 5. McDonald attempted a thin double to score two, they the lost their shooter for the second point. Up 1 without hammer coming home in the final end, McDonald again went to work, making a triple takeout with his first shot, followed by a delicate hack weight shot to dig out Dunstone's previous shot under cover. Left with a hail mary just to score, McDonald stole two more points to seal the 8-5 win. McDonald is no stranger to playing against teams older than him, having participated regularly on Tour the last few seasons as a junior team. "The step up to men's play has been pretty smooth for us," McDonald added. "I've been playing men's events since I was 17 as a junior, so it's not new to me." "We mostly played men's events as a junior team last year and had some success the last couple of years, so it's given us confidence to compete with the top teams." Clearly, that confidence is not misplaced. "It's always super great to get to play teams like that and guys we look up to because we learn a lot from everything they do. McDonald went X-X in winning the U25 NextGen Classic at the end of August, then reached the final of the Saville Shootout the following weekend, where they lost to Saskatoon's Mike McEwen. "This year is the first year we're planning on travelling and playing some bigger events," McDonald continued. "The Saville Shootout was the strongest field we'd ever played, and we thought it'd be a good learning experience to get an idea of what to expect for some of the other events we might play in. "For the NextGen, we played really well, and for the Saville Shootout, we played well throughout the week and got some breaks and scrappy wins." In speaking to McDonald following their successes in Edmonton, this week's win over Dunstone to advance into Friday's Elite 8 round continues to raise those expectation. "To start the year, we have surpassed our expectations, and we hope to build off that for the rest of the season." |
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