Top Brier skips shine

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. • Thepretournament favourites are playing like contenders this week at the Tim Hortons Brier.

The round robin has essentially gone as expected at Mile One Centre with top skips such as Brad Gushue, Kevin Koe, Mike McEwen and Brad Jacobs setting themselves up nicely for potential weekend play.

Jean-Michel Ménard and John Morris were also in the hunt.

“I think that’s the way Canadian men’s curling is,” McEwen said. “You’ve got about a half-dozen teams and if you run this over and over and over again, you might get six different winners depending on the week.”

Five rinks had seven wins apiece after Thursday afternoon’s draw. The top four teams will advance to the Page playoffs.

The near-capacity crowd lent its support to Gushue (72), who led Newfoundland and Labrador to an 8-7 victory over Ontario’s Glenn Howard. Gushue drew to the button in the extra end for the win.

“I just had to rely on what I’ve been doing all week,” he said. “I’ve pretty well been able to put it on the T-line on command. So I just trusted it and it went there. The guys did a great job sweeping it.”

Both McEwen and Koe were left with 7-2 records after the defending champion topped the Manitoba skip 6-3.

“It’s a very scoreboard management type of game against those guys because everybody is so good,” said Canada third Marc Kennedy. “Our skip played great again. Like our coach says, we’re learning how to win without playing our best. I think that’s something we’ve struggled with in the past.”

Manitoba shot 92 per cent overall, while Canada was at 88 per cent. McEwen finished at 83 per cent, well behind Koe at 95 per cent.

“It wasn’t so much that we missed,” McEwen said. “It was they made some great ones.”

Ménard guided his Quebec team to a pair of wins to pull even with Jacobs at 7-3. Ménard beat New Brunswick’s Mike Kennedy 9-4 after topping Jamie Koe of the Northwest Territories 8-6 in the morning.

Jacobs, meanwhile, helped Northern Ontario to an 8-5 win over Saskatchewan’s Adam Casey (5-5). Morris’s B.C. rink (6-4) kept its playoff hopes alive with a 5-2 win over Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher. Nova Scotia’s Jamie Murphy beat the Northwest Territories 8-4.

Murphy improved to 4-6 and Howard fell to 3-6. Bottcher was 3-7 while Kennedy and Jamie Koe were last at 1-9.

The final draw is scheduled for Friday morning. If tiebreakers are needed, they will be played in the afternoon. The 1-2 Page playoff game between the top two seeds will go Friday night.