Notification Settings

All parties pleased with how well Brier ran

By all accounts, the first Brier in Brandon in 37 years was a success.

Organizers were proud of the way things went, Curling Canada was happy with how smooth things ran and players couldn’t have been more pleased to be able to leave their hotel room and have a short walk to get ready for their games, to which they were greeted by a vocal crowd.

It was a lot of work to bring the Canadian men’s curling championship to the Wheat City for the first time since 1982, but for Ryan Shields, it was worth it.

“It was a great week,” said Shields, who co-chaired to event along with Nate Andrews and Jackie Nichol. “The support from the community, the support from Curl Canada and everything and the sponsors was unreal. It’s been a lot of fun. All our hard work is paying off.”

Bottcher makes massive shot to reach Brier final

| Brendan Bottcher sat in the hack with laser-like focus for his last shot of the Tim Hortons Brier semifinal at Westoba Place on Sunday afternoon.

Concentrating on nothing but the guard he needed to raise onto another guard, into his own stone to nudge it into the four-foot for a game-winning deuce.

He was perfect. Bottcher and Team Wild Card edged Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs 5-4 and booked their spot in the Canadian men’s curling championship final.

Alberta caps perfect run to win Brier

Just about everything about the Tim Hortons Brier in Brandon says Alberta is the king of Canadian men’s curling.

Kevin Koe won an all-Alberta battle 4-3 over Wild Card’s Brendan Bottcher to claim his fourth Brier title on Sunday and the province’s 28th Canadian men’s curling championship, breaking a tie with Manitoba.

As he did on a handful of occasions during the week, Koe finished it in the most dramatic of fashions. In front of a dead silent crowd of 4,234 at Westoba Place, he delivered a takeout that rolled just far enough to bump a second Bottcher stone far enough for a game-winning deuce.

Was it Koe’s favourite of his four?

Alberta books spot in Brier final

| Alberta’s Kevin Koe will play for his fourth Canadian men’s curling championship title on Sunday at Westoba Place.

Koe and his Alberta team of B.J. Neufeld, Colton Flasch and Ben Hebert booked their spot in the final, which will start at 7 p.m., with a dominating 9-4 victory over Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs in the 1-vs.-2 Page playoff game on Saturday evening.

It’s the sixth final in seven Tim Hortons Brier appearances for Koe, who has three titles to his name and two silver medals. He’s looking forward to playing in another championship game.

Wild Card ousts Team Canada from Brier

| A new champion will be crowned at the Tim Hortons Brier at Westoba Place on Sunday.

Two-time reigning champion Brad Gushue and his Team Canada foursome of Mark Nichols, Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker were eliminated from this year’s Canadian men’s curling championship with a 7-2 loss to Wild Card’s Brendan Bottcher in the 3-vs.-4 Page playoff game on Saturday afternoon.

“I feel good,” said Wild Card third Darren Moulding. “The team played well. It felt like we were pretty loose and relaxed. Got a little bit of a break in the second and took the edge off I think. After that, I thought we played excellent.”

Brier Patch brings people together

Filled with the joyous cacophony of people enjoying their favourite sport while enjoying each other’s company, the Brier Patch has been one of the busiest spots at the Keystone Centre during the 2019 Tim Hortons Brier.

“If you don’t have fun at a Brier Patch, then you’re not trying very hard,” Thunder Bay-based curler and seasoned veteran of the Patch Fred Coulson said.

What has become a Brier tradition, the patch was born in Brandon back in 1982, as a way to give people who couldn’t get their hands on tickets a chance to watch curling games on closed-circuit televisions.

It has become a staple of the Brier ever since and has even been added to every Curling Canada event.

Manitoba experience perfect everywhere but on scoreboard

It’s been a bit of a strange week for Team Manitoba at the Tim Hortons Brier.

For skip Mike McEwen, it was a chance to play in the Canadian men’s curling championship in the city where he was raised. Derek Samagalski, the team’s second, now calls Brandon home and was looking forward to playing in front of family and friends.

The foursome, which also includes third Reid Carruthers and lead Colin Hodgson, had never been the home team at the Brier in their past appearances, but it’s an experience that will stick with them for a while, even though they failed to advance to the playoff round.

“It’s been awesome,” Samagalski said. “Our team has been fortunate enough to play in a bunch of Briers already. None of us have played in a hometown Brier before. For Mike being a Brandon kid and me now living in Brandon and all of our family and friends and sponsors here, it’s been unreal. They’ve been great and we tried to put on the best show we could for them.”

Alberta takes perfect record into playoffs

Alberta’s Kevin Koe had to grind out a lot of games early on at the Tim Hortons Brier, but his team has never waivered.

Koe, third B.J. Neufeld, second Colton Flasch and lead Ben Hebert completed a perfect 11-0 record in preliminary-round and championship-pool play with a 9-3 win over Saskatchewan’s Kirk Muyres (5-6) and a 7-5 victory over Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs (9-2) at Westoba Place on Friday.

The finale against Jacobs was a tight game, but Koe made a quiet tap for two with his last in the 10th end to win the game.

“It’s a pretty tough field,” Neufeld said. “I don’t think you expect to come into an event like this and run the table in the round robin. We played well, we’ve made the right shots at the right times and then got some really big breaks along the way as well. Obviously to rattle off 11 in a row you need some pretty big breaks.

Playoff matchups set at Brier

| The final four is set at the Tim Hortons Brier and tonight’s draw will be a preview of the Page playoff games.

Wild Card’s Brendan Bottcher defeated Ontario’s Scott McDonald 6-4 at Westoba Place on Friday afternooon to wrap up a playoff spot for that team as well as Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs and Team Canada’s Brad Gushue. Alberta secured its berth on Thursday.

Then Brad Jacobs and Northern Ontario edged Team Canada’s Brad Gushue 7-6 in an extra end to secure their place in Saturday’s 1-vs.-2 Page playoff game.

Manitoba falls out of contention at Brier

Perhaps Team Manitoba was simply swinging out of its weight class at the Tim Hortons Brier, this year anyway.

Mike McEwen’s team started championship pool play up against the ropes at 4-3, and suffered a one-two punch as Canada’s Brad Gushue struck first with a 6-3 decision, and Alberta’s Kevin Koe delivered the 6-5 knockout blow at Westoba Place on Thursday.

McEwen (4-5) missed a raise-takeout with his last and Koe (9-0) came up big with a come-around draw to the four-foot to win.

“That wasn’t a super easy shot I had to play. To make sure he couldn’t have two, I had to nut it,” McEwen said. “When the clock’s ticking down, I probably didn’t have quite the right shot process from the call to the throw, and sometimes it’s not much to miss out here.

Curling folks crazy ’bout sharp dressed fans

The back of Brenda Chicoine’s truck was filled with a variety of different costumes as she chugged across the Manitoba border earlier this month.

Her destination? The Tim Hortons Brier. Chicoine and her sister, Dorothy Mosher, have been going to Briers across the country for the past 13 years. Each year, they bring a multitude of different outfits to wear throughout the event.

One of them always tries to drive, Chicoine said, so they can transport the many outfits they wear during the games.

This year, it was her turn.

So, how are you liking the Brier?

We stopped in at the 2019 Tim Hortons Brier on Thursday to gauge people’s thoughts on the event thus far in Brandon’s Westoba Place. Everyone we asked seemed genuinely impressed with the whole thing and were having a grand old time, from watching the action to taking in the Brier Patch and getting autographs from the curlers. Here are comments from 10 people we asked.

» The Brandon Sun

Manitoba falls to Canada, nearly out of contention

It’s now nearly a mathematical impossibility that Manitoba sees the weekend at the Tim Hortons Brier.

Mike McEwen, Reid Carruthers, Derek Samagalski and Colin Hodgson couldn’t generate enough points to come back from a 3-1 deficit at the break and lost 6-3 to Team Canada’s Brad Gushue (7-1) at Westoba Place on Thursday afternoon.

“I actually thought we played pretty well,” McEwen said. “You don’t get much margin for error when you’re playing a well-oiled team like that.

“I thought we were dealing with a little difficult set of rocks. That’s one of the most un-matches sets on the ice and we tried our best.”

Brier behind the lens

All this week, the news team at The Brandon Sun is providing readers and curling fans free coverage of the 2019 Tim Horton's Brier, including both on and off-ice action. Here's a round up of some of our favourite Brier images taken by our news team.

Manitoba advances to championship pool

Mike McEwen needs to win a lot of games in a row to get where he wants to go.

Team Manitoba is through to the Tim Hortons Brier championship pool, but only just, after beating Prince Edward Island’s John Likely 7-6 at Westoba Place on Wednesday afternoon.

McEwen, Reid Carruthers, Derek Samagalski and Colin Hodgson likely need to win seven games in a row to have a shot at hoisting the Tankard, just like they did at the Viterra Championship in Virden a month ago.

“We’re definitely capable of it,” Carruthers said. “We’re going to be a little bit nervous, obviously, like I’m nervous playing in any game, but it’s so much fun to get to play in front of Brandon and in front of the crowd. They’ve been really supportive of us and we feel like we don’t want to let anyone down, so we’re going to try out best.”

New Brunswick’s Odishaw proved to be tough test all week

Terry Odishaw’s season wasn’t supposed to end at the Tim Hortons Brier.

In reality, the return to Manitoba where he competed in his first Canadian men’s curling championship (1998 in Winnipeg) was to be a tune-up for something else.

The 52-year-old skip had his sights set on making a breakthrough at the New Brunswick senior men’s playdowns and qualifying for nationals. All the team had to do was sign up for provincials, but someone messed up and missed a registration deadline.

The paperwork snafu tossed a hard takeout at those hopes. The Odishaw foursome would have come in as the favourites.

Ice Pak tight-knit group

It was the love of curling that brought a group of volunteers to the ice, but it’s the friendships they’ve made that keep them coming back — some for more than three decades.

A group of the volunteers who call themselves the Ice Pak prepped and scraped the ice together at the Labatt Brier in 1982, and kept coming together through the years as various curling championships rolled through Brandon, including the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in 1993 and 2002, the 1995 Men’s and Women’s World Championships and the Canadian Olympic curling trials in 1997.

This year, they’re back on the ice together once again for the Tim Hortons Brier, knowing that for some of them, it could be their last time volunteering.

“There’s a satisfaction of getting it done,” said director of arena, rocks and ice Greg Rabe, 64, who has been volunteering since the ’82 Brier. “We’ve got a good group of guys and we have a lot of fun doing it. … We’ve had the most fun out of all the volunteers.”

McEwen, Manitoba sneak into championship pool in third

| Team Manitoba did enough to stick around for a few more days at the Tim Hortons Brier on Wednesday afternoon.

Mike McEwen, Reid Carruthers, Derek Samagalski and Colin Hodgson gutted out a 7-6 win over Prince Edward Island’s John Likely at the Canadian men’s curling championship at Westoba Place, improving to 4-3 and third in Pool A.

“We got pushed today. I thought the boys from the Island played pretty darn well,” McEwen said.

Northern Ontario, Alberta unbeaten at Brier

BRANDON, Man. - Northern Ontario's Brad Jacobs and Alberta's Kevin Koe stayed unbeaten at the Canadian men's curling championship Thursday.

Both teams won their first games of the championship pool to improve to 8-0.

Trailing Brendan Bottcher's wild-card team 6-4 heading into the 10th end, Koe hit for three and the win.

Northern Ontario continued its dominance thumping B.C.'s Jim Cotter 11-5.

Canada makes it to championship pool

| An expected formality is now an official reality at the Tim Hortons Brier.

Brad Gushue and Team Canada (5-1) beat Stuart Thompson (3-3) and Nova Scotia 9-2 at Westoba Place on Wednesday morning, securing the two-time defending champions a spot in the championship pool.

"It’s great. Obviously the mission is to get through to the championship round with a s good a record as you can," Canada third Mark Nichols said. "Today’s a two-game day, so being able to play eight ends instead of 10, get your feet up for an extra half hour or 45 minutes, any time you can get the extra rest is good."

Calmer Jacobs team may be more dangerous

Living and dying with every toss of granite is no longer the modus operandi for Brad Jacobs’ curling team from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

The strain of trying to duplicate successes of the past is gone.

What we’re seeing at the 2019 Brier at Westoba Place is a low-key, efficient Northern Ontario squad that just keeps racking up victories and has secured a spot in the championship pool. The brash, bull-in-a-China-shop disposition that was on display for so many seasons has morphed into something controlled, almost serene.

It takes some getting used to.

Manitoba in must-win situation

Team Manitoba is struggling to stay on its feet in the Tim Hortons Brier.

Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs (6-0) is in a full sprint, headed straight for the championship pool after dropping Mike McEwen, Reid Carruthers, Derek Samagalski and Colin Hodgson 9-5 Pool A at Westoba Place on Tuesday evening.

“We knew we would have to bring our A-game. They played well, we had some chances, and in a competition like this it doesn’t take much. The good teams capitalize pretty quick,” said Samagalski, whose team dropped to 3-3 in preliminary-round play. “We gave them kind of a cheap deuce and the momentum switched (in the sixth), but we didn’t give up. We battled them right to the end.”

Jacobs, Ryan Fry, E.J. Harnden and Ryan Harnden are curling 93 per cent as a team so far at the Canadian men’s curling championship so far, and curled 92 against the hometown team. Alberta and Canada are tied for second at 88.