McEwen’s Olympic dream lives for another day
Manitoba rink still in contention and ready to battle top teams, writes Ted Wyman.
Mike McEwen of Winnipeg OTTAWA has a reputation for wearing his heart on his sleeve and occasionally giving in to the temptation to take high-risk chances.
At the Canadian Olympic curling trials this week, he’s been unusually calm, and on Friday McEwen figured bringing a bit more of that fire back to his game could work to his advantage.
“Maybe I was too even-keeled,” McEwen said. “You still have to have a certain amount of desire in these things. If you are too mellow, that might not be good either. Maybe I was getting a little bit too loose.”
He ramped up the intensity for Friday’s do-or-die game against Edmonton’s Brendan Bottcher and broke out of a mini-slump (three losses in four games) with a 6-4 win that clinched him at least a tiebreaker with a 5-3 record.
“I felt it that game,” McEwen said. “There was quite a bit of desire out there.”
McEwen’s team, which includes third B.J. Neufeld, second Matt Wozniak and lead Denni Neufeld, may have to win a tiebreaker on Saturday morning to earn a spot in the men’s semifinal against Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L.
Winnipeg’s Reid Carruthers had a chance to force the tiebreaker when he was on the ice against Bottcher on Friday night.
If either of them can get past Gushue in Saturday night’s semifinal, they’ll play Calgary’s Kevin Koe in Sunday night’s final. The winner there will represent Canada in the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.
“Playing on Saturday, so that’s a pretty good feeling,” McEwen said. “We’re two or three wins from going to the Olympics and we’re up against basically who we thought we’d have to beat.”
McEwen has played in plenty of big games in his life, though he has never won a Canadian championship. The two teams that finished with better round robin records are much more decorated. Gushue is the reigning world champion and an Olympic gold medallist from 2006, while Koe is a two-time world champion.
But McEwen has played in Grand Slam finals and Manitoba provincial finals and made the playoffs at the Brier last year.
“In a tough situation, I don’t think I’m going to get too tense, too knotted up,” McEwen said. “I’ve been through five provincial finals so I know what that feels like. I’m battle-tested as far as nerves go and just sticking to our game plan and that risk management is really key for me to stay the course.”
If McEwen plays Carruthers in the tiebreaker, he’ll be facing one of his best friends with their Olympic lives on the line.
If he gets to go up against Gushue, he’ll be curling against someone who has been a fierce rival since they were both teenagers.
“We go way back,” McEwen said. “We’re the same age. We played in the 2001 junior final (Gushue won).
“There’s a long history there. He doesn’t have the edge overall, but this is the best team Brad has ever put together. We’ve been pretty good against him lately. We’ve traded wins and losses. He won the big one in the Brier and we won one in the Players’ Championship in the semis.”
McEwen knows the odds are long when you have to beat teams like Gushue and Koe in succession to the get to the Olympics.
“They’ve been so good lately that we know what we’re going to have to be to beat them,” he said.
“We’re going to have to be good. There’s a long history there and we’re pretty comfortable playing each other. They know what to expect and we know what to expect out of them.”