 There are hot streaks, and then there are HOT streaks - as in white-hot, hotter than the sun, hotter than two weasels wrestling in a wool sock. That's the kind of hot streak Team Mike McEwen is on in the month of September, and it carried on Sunday afternoon at the WinSport Event Centre in Calgary in the men's final of the 2024 PointsBet Invitational. Winners of two straight World Curling Tour titles heading into the PointsBet, Team McEwen, seeded third in the 16-team field, made it three and a row, rolling to an 8-3 win over top-seeded Team Brad Gushue of St. John's, N.L. The championship game victory added $24,000 to the team's earnings in Calgary, making it a tidy $50,000 for McEwen, third Colton Flasch, second/vice-skip Kevin Marsh, lead Daniel Marsh and coach Brent Laing. "It really didn't matter who was in the final," said McEwen. "It was more about how well can our team play for an extended period of time. We've really sharpened our skills in September. But obviously, playing the two Brads (Team McEwen dispatched Team Brad Jacobs of Calgary in Saturday's semifinal), any time you can get a little notch in the season head-to-head, you have to take that. I hope there are many more to come." Team McEwen couldn't have asked for a better way to start the game; McEwen made a spectacular angle-raise takeout to remove a frozen Team Gushue stone and sit three buried. Gushue's runback takeout attempt barely overcurled and didn't remove any of the Team McEwen counters and McEwen made the open draw for four to open the scoring. "It was huge," said Flasch. "Any time you can get a lead on Brad - even getting (first-end) hammer on Brad is pretty big. But even when you get four against him, you know he's not going to go away, and he didn't." Team Gushue hung tough for a few ends, scoring one in the second end and stealing one in the third. But after a pair of blank ends, Team McEwen delivered, for all intents and purposes, the knockout blow. Gushue's last-rock guard overcurled, giving McEwen a narrow port to get at Team Gushue's shot stone, and it resulted in a three and a 7-2 lead, with accompanying jubilant fist-pumps from the toe-sliding skipper. "You can't just shut down and stop playing," said McEwen. "The five-rock rule, no-tick rule, there are lots of (ways) to get offence, and Team Gushue is one of the best at not going away. They played a perfect (sixth) end up until Brad's last one left the opening. That was a big moment; I knew I had to take advantage of it — a stolen point there, that's a big momentum shift, things get a lot tighter." While it didn't completely ease the pain, it was a measure of revenge for Team McEwen after losing to Team Gushue in the final of the 2024 Montana's Brier last March in Regina. Gushue, vice-skip Mark Nichols, second E.J. Harnden, lead Geoff Walker and coach Jeff Hoffart took home the runner-up cheque of $26,000. "The ice has been a little bit different each game and we struggled catching on," said Gushue. "It was at least half a second slower from our pre-game practice to the actual game, and we didn't catch on quick enough. I didn't feel comfortable putting the broom down for any of the shots, and Mike and his team were completely dialled in. It wasn't all (about) the ice; there was certainly some user error out there. But it was a tough game for us." Both teams will immediately fly to Charlottetown for the opening Grand Slam event of the 2024-25 season, the HearingLife Tour Challenge, beginning on Tuesday. And while Team McEwen is clearly shooting lights out, the skip knows very well other Canadian teams can play catch-up in a hurry. "Those teams are going to go to work," said McEwen. "This is early." "They're going to be hungry to come after us now. I'm expecting a great year for Canadian curling. This is great competition - for us to enter the conversation as one of the best teams in Canada, and to push each other push Brad Gushue, push Brad Jacobs, it's only going to benefit whoever wins Canada." |
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Rachel Homan (photo: Anil Mungal/GSOC) and Xenia Schwaller both bounce back with wins in B-side action and will face-off Friday for a playoff spot.
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