Ontario curler finds home with Nova Scotia
McDonald replaces skip who didn't want to leave family to play in Brier in Calgary
When he heard Jamie Murphy's Nova Scotia foursome might be in the market for a replacement skip, Ontario's Scott McDonald picked up the phone and threw his name in the ring.
“More jokingly than anything I reached out to (Nova Scotia second) Scott (Saccary) and said, `If you need a free agent, let me know,'” McDonald said Sunday from the Tim Hortons Brier in Calgary.
“A couple weeks later, they reached out to me. I had a conversation with (third) Paul (Flemming) and 15 minutes later they decided they'd like me to join them for the event.
“They're an easy team to step on the ice with. They're three good players with great personalities and they operate really well as a team. For me to step in and join them, really on the fly, it worked quite well. There really weren't a lot of growing pains.”
McDonald, a 34-year-old who represented Ontario at the Brier in 2019 and made the championship round before finishing at 6-5, is guiding the Nova Scotia foursome in Calgary.
Murphy opted not to leave his wife and three kids at home to compete in the Brier. He would have had to quarantine on both ends of the event and didn't see it as feasible.
McDonald, who was close to getting into the Brier as a wildcard after his team placed 11th in the 2019-20 Canadian Team Ranking System standings, was available and eager to join the team.
“We were really fortunate to get Scott because there are so many good teams that are already in this,” Flemming said. “Scott was close, too, so for him to be available, we were really fortunate. It was tough for Murph. He had to make a difficult decision but it was a decision we all respected, so we moved on. We were very happy to get Scott and he didn't hesitate at all so that was a very comfortable feeling for everybody.”
The hardest part, of course, was that McDonald would be skipping a team he had never played with before in the Brier. Normally teams spend months coming together and honing their skills, but that has not been possible for most curlers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It would be easier stepping into another role just because you'd have a skip who would dictate the game and the team knows how it flows that way,” McDonald said. “With me skipping, the team was really good about saying, `What you want to do, we'll follow along. If you have a strategic plan, we'll go along with you and we trust you and we have faith in the game you want to call.'
“That instilled a lot of confidence from me right from the onset.”
STRANGE DAY OFF
Manitoba's Jason Gunnlaugson got off to a terrific start on Saturday, winning games against Alberta's Brendan Bottcher and Yukon's Dustin Mikkelsen. Then they got a day off. The Gunnlaugson team spent all of Sunday in the hotel, a quirk of the schedule in an 18-team expanded field.
“Lots of cribbage,” Manitoba second Matt Wozniak said. “Jason is going to kill as much food as possible. Watch curling. Not a whole lot else we can do.”
Each of the nine teams in each pool gets one bye during the Brier. Some teams get mornings or evenings off and still play one game, while for others the bye falls in the afternoon draw and that means a full day off.
“It's a little unique,” Wozniak said. “I can't say we've had this in the past. But certainly with two wins, the day off will be a lot more fun.”
Gunnlaugson, who played in his first Brier last year and went 5-6, showed up this year with a bit of a different look — a big shock of hair on his head. Due to rules against players leaving the bubble, that's not going to change any time soon.
“It's a pandemic,” he said with a laugh. “You've got to respect that you can have a little shaggy hair. We're all going through that.”
BIG BLOWOUTS
There's no doubt the Brier is one of the true pure national championships in sports, with representation from 14 provincial and territorial jurisdictions, Team Canada and three wildcard teams making up the field.
There's beauty in the fact that teams from Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut get a chance to compete with some of the greatest curlers in the game — but there is also the potential for serious mismatches.
On Sunday, Quebec's Mike Fournier beat Nunavut's Peter Mackey 15-1.
Fournier and his teammates are good, no doubt, but they're not even among the top 10 favourites here this week. For them to beat Nunavut so badly doesn't bode well for Mackey's chances against the likes of Ontario's John Epping, Kevin Koe's wild card team or Team Canada's Brad Gushue.
Nunavut also lost 10-2 to Saskatchewan's Matt Dunstone on Friday.