McEwen rink battles their way to Viterra title

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This article was published 13/02/2022 (1513 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SELKIRK – For the first time in three years, Mike McEwen and his rink from the West St. Paul Curling Club are the top men’s curling squad in Manitoba.

After losing the 2020 Viterra Championship final to Jason Gunnalugson and not having the chance to even play in the event last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Brandon product regained the title Sunday with an 8-3 victory in eight ends over Colton Lott’s Winnipeg Beach side.

McEwen — who curls with Reid Carruthers, Carberry’s Derek Samagalski and Colin Hodgson — will represent the province at the Tim Hortons Brier in Lethbridge, Alta. next month.

“I thought it didn’t matter what jacket I wore at the Brier, but I was wrong,” said McEwen, who has played as a Wild Card team at three of the last four national men’s championships.

“That thought might not apply to everyone, but when you put on the Manitoba colours there’s a little more sense of responsibility and pride in representing the province. There’s also the pressure to do well and I want that. We’re going to relish wearing those colours again.”

The 41-year-old skip admitted that the week was a grind, especially as Hodgson dealt with a torn left quad.

Hodgson, who thinks he’s had the injury for awhile but didn’t realize how bad it was until he was playing at a mixed doubles competition with Chelsea Carey in Brantford, Ont. before Christmas, aggravated the quad on Thursday during their first round game against Richard Muntain of the Granite and did not play Friday.

He battled through the pain all weekend and was visibly emotional as he celebrated with his teammates.

“I was trying my best to hide it,” Hodgson said. “Every slide was painful and every sweep was painful. I was trying to figuring out what I could do and what I had left in the tank get through the games.

“I suppressed all of that for so long. I know that it might not necessarily be considered OK for males in sport to cry but there was going to be a floodgate of emotions win or lose. The guys had my back all week and this was the most fulfilling provincials that I’ve played in, regardless of the outcome.”

Sunday’s provincial win was the fourth for McEwen and Hodgson, the fifth for Samagalski and the seventh for Carruthers.

“This feels like it might have been the hardest one,” McEwen said. “We all had to dig down deep and use a lot of our experience to win it this week.

“The old crafty veterans survived just long enough to get it done. There’s an amazing amount of young talent in this province though and we saw this weekend. There’s all of those corn broom tuckers out there man and they are throwing laser beams. They are going to be scary.”

Among those young talents is the 26-year-old Lott, who curls alongside Kyle Doering, Tanner Lott and Emerson Klimpke.

Lott, who had lost two previous finals with William Lyburn and Matt Dunstone’s rinks in 2019 and 2016 receptively, had gone 5-0 and defeated McEwen by a score of 8-7 in the 1 vs. 2 Page playoff game Saturday night.

The final though was one of missed opportunities, starting with an open draw to score three points in the first end that ended up sailing through the house.

Although Lott held a 3-2 lead at the fifth end break, McEwen moved in front for good by scoring three points in the sixth.

He stole a point in the seventh when Lott crashed off a guard on a takeout attempt and swiped two more points in the eighth to round out the scoring.

“We just weren’t as sharp as our previous games and it showed,” Lott said. “We never got on the right side of the inch today.

“It’s obviously disappointing, but there’s so much that we can all learn from this. We’ve added a ton of experience and we all have a better idea of how to feel when we’re in a provincial final like this. We’re going to be better prepared for this situation in the future.”

McEwen reached the final with a wild 10-9 win over Ryan Wiebe in a back-and-forth semifinal Sunday morning.

The tone of the game was set early as McEwen gave up a steal of two in the first end but bounced back by putting five points on the scoreboard in the second frame.

“We were really fortunate to even have that opportunity for five,” McEwen said.

“It looked like we had a good chance for three points, and even that would have been pretty tough, but unfortunately Ryan had a little miscue there on his last shot (when he was heavy on a freeze attempt). Had he made that, there’s no chance we could have gotten five.”

Wiebe’s Fort Rouge squad, which features Ty Dilello, Sean Flatt, Adam Flatt and Hayden Forrester, quickly responded however as they scored three points in the third end to tie the game back up at five before trading blows with McEwen the rest of the way.

“We were definitely bummed after giving up five but we knew there was a lot of game left to come back and battle in every end,” Wiebe said.

“We never got down on each other. We were making shots all week and playing super good. We kept up the pressure on them and we made Mike throw his last shot in the final end. That’s all we could have hoped for going into today.”

While he was disappointed about the loss, it was another impressive week for the 21-year-old Wiebe, who was a win away from making the Page playoffs in his Viterra debut two years ago in Winnipeg.

“Our goal was to make it to the final four this time around and we trained super hard so that we were ready to contend,” Wiebe said. “There’s a couple of shots I want back from today but there’s so many great things that we can take away from this week. I’m super happy with everything went.”

“There’s a lot of talent on that team and it’s nice to see that kind of potential in Manitoba curling,” McEwen added. “We’ve played those guys in a number of different situations over the last few years and they are all really progressing nicely.”

Wiebe advance to the semifinal with a 7-4 victory over Corey Chambers in the 3 vs. 4 Page playoff game Saturday night.

While Chambers’ was proud of his team’s performance, he admitted that it was tough to account for the positives after the loss, especially after his rink fell behind 5-0 after three ends.

“We got caught a couple of times early on and I tried to make a tough shot in the third end (when Wiebe stole two points) instead of trying to keep things simple,” Chambers said.

“It’s tough when you’ve played so well to get to this point and we weren’t as sharp as we had been, but give all the credit to Team Wiebe. They really didn’t give us much of an opportunity and they are a real threat to win this.”

On his way to the playoffs, Wiebe knocked out two of the top-ranked teams as he eliminated Gunnlaugson’s Morris Curling Club quartet and Braden Calvert’s Assiniboine rink from championship contention on Saturday.

It was a tough day for Calvert, who is from Carberry.

He had a 6-3 lead over Mike McEwen after eight ends of a 1 vs. 2 Page playoff qualifier in the morning draw, only to give up three points in the ninth frame and a steal in the 10th to drop a 7-6 decision.

“It’s going to be a long off-season,” Calvert said. “Obviously we’re pretty disappointed with how it turned out, especially when we gave up a steal of two to Wiebe in the sixth and allowing three in the ninth to McEwen when we were in control of things, but we just weren’t on the right side of things today.

“We dug deep this week though and after a pretty strange year with COVID-19 affecting our preparation, I’m proud of the guys for getting this close.”

While Gunnlaugson was unable to defend his Viterra Championship crown that he won two years ago, he has a chance to make it next month’s Brier as one of the three wild card squads.

“We won’t know until Monday I think, but I feel like we have a chance of getting one of those spots with how well we’ve played to start the year,” Gunnlaugson said.

“It’s a tough way for our week to finish here but that’s how curling goes sometimes. There’s weeks where you play well and there’s weeks where you don’t.”

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