KOE WINS A CLASSIC OVER McEWEN TO BOOK TRIP TO OLYMPICS

• He’s a two- time world champion and a threetime Brier winner and now Kevin Koe can add Olympian to his lengthy list of accomplishments.

Koe and his Calgary teammates Mark Kennedy, Brent Laing and Ben Hebert beat Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen 7- 6 in the final of the Canadian Olympic curling trials Sunday night at the Canadian Tire Centre.

They played a tremendous game in the final, just as they did all week while going 7-1 in the round robin, and needed everything they could muster against an extremely tough McEwen team.

In an absolute classic of a game, Koe had to make a draw against two McEwen rocks in the 10th end to secure the win. He needed all three of his sweepers working their hardest to get it there.

The foursome will represent Canada at the Olympic Winter Games in Pyeong- Chang, South Korea, from Feb. 9 to 25.

It will be the second trip to the Olympics for Kennedy and Hebert, who won gold medals in 2010 with the Kevin Martin team. However, it’s the first Olympic appearance for Koe, who won world championships in 2016 and 2010, and Laing, who has three world titles (2016 with Koe, 2012 and 2007 with Glenn Howard).

It was truly a shame that either team had to lose this game. Both played splendidly and either team would have made fine Olympic representatives.

Both teams exchanged great shots in the first end as Koe came out and got aggressive in pursuit of an early score. McEwen twice had to skinny guards to make takeouts and he managed to force Koe into drawing to the fourfoot for one.

That was about as good a start as McEwen could hope for against a skip who is normally deadly when he has hammer in the first end.