Alberta’s Bottcher on the rise
REGINA Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher has put his rink in great position heading into the Championship Pool at the Tim Hortons Brier.
Bottcher finished the final day of round-robin play at the Canadian men’s curling championship with a 9-2 win over Wild Card Mike McEwen on Wednesday to earn the No. 1 seed entering the next round of play.
Bottcher’s rink forced McEwen’s squad to concede in eight ends.
“We’re just making all the simple shots really well. We’re making the other team play harder shots than we’re playing and that’s working out for us,” said the Edmonton-based skip.
Alberta’s steal of two after a pick on McEwen’s last rock in the fourth end, alongside a five-point ender in the fifth, sealed the fate for the match.
“They were playing well at the time but we would have been ahead on the scoreboard ... controlling the game, air kind of came out (of us),” said Winnipeg-based skip McEwen.
Bottcher, Brad Gushue’s Team Canada, Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs and Ontario’s John Epping all finished the round robin with 6-1 records, but the Alberta skip took the No. 1 seed in the Championship Pool after his Pool A win earlier in the day over Gushue.
McEwen dropped to 5-2 with the loss, but still moved on as the top four teams from two pools advance to the Championship Pool of eight. Manitoba’s Reid Carruthers also finished 5-2 to advance.
The championship pool gets underway Thursday afternoon at the Brandt Centre in Regina.