Shortly after securing first place in his pool with another comfortable round-robin win, Alberta’s Kevin Koe looked up at the media backdrop stand adorned with pictures of previous national men’s curling champions.
The veteran skip is holding the Tim Hortons Brier tankard in four of them. He has cleared the first hurdle in his mission to do it again.
READ MORE: Rinks chasing Brier Tankard, history in Lethbridge
“Lots of pride, I guess, to have won this four times,” Koe said. “Obviously, they’re great memories but the focus is obviously trying to win another. All of us having won it, it’ll probably help calm us a little.
“We know what to expect if we get into a situation to try to win another one hopefully.”
The first-place positioning gives Koe, third B.J. Neufeld, second John Morris and lead Ben Hebert some extra rest. They’ll get to skip the crossover playoff qualifier games Friday afternoon between the second- and third-place finishers in the two pools.
“We’re glad we’re there but now the real work begins,” Hebert said.
Canada’s Brendan Bottcher (7-1) was in second place after a 6-3 win over Nathan Young of Newfoundland and Labrador. Saskatchewan’s Colton Flasch (6-2) needed an extra end for a 9-8 win over Wild Card Two’s Matt Dunstone (6-2) to set up a Friday tiebreaker between the provincial rivals for the third and final playoff spot in Pool A.
In Pool B, Brad Gushue’s Wild Card One team (7-0) secured first place earlier Thursday with a 6-5 victory over Wild Card Three’s Jason Gunnlaugson.
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READ MORE: Gushue wraps up top spot in Pool B at Brier with 6-5 extra end win over Gunnlaugson
Manitoba’s Mike McEwen defeated Jamie Koe of the Northwest Territories 7-3 to move into a second-place tie with idle Northern Ontario skip Brad Jacobs at 5-2.
Manitoba and Northern Ontario can lock up playoff berths with victories in the round-robin finale Thursday night. McEwen was scheduled to play Quebec’s Michael Fournier (3-4) and Jacobs was to meet Nova Scotia’s Paul Flemming (3-4).
Gunnlaugson (5-3) was still in the mix for a potential tiebreaker entering the late draw.
He had a 4-3 edge on Gushue after eight ends but the St. John’s skip scored two in the ninth for the lead. A measure confirmed Gunnlaugson’s single in the 10th but Gushue used hammer to his advantage in the extra end.
“Hopefully we can, in the playoffs, get all four guys going at the same time,” said Gushue, who won Olympic bronze last month in Beijing. “I like how everybody is throwing it.”
In other games, Quebec thumped Nova Scotia 14-6, Ontario’s Glenn Howard whipped Yukon’s Thomas Scoffin 10-2 and British Columbia’s Brent Pierce beat Nunavut’s Peter Mackey 9-2.
It’s an 18-team field at the national playdowns this year – two more than usual – and there’s an expanded playoff structure.
The crossover games will go Friday afternoon with the winners to play the pool leaders in the evening. The winners of those games advance to the Page playoff 1-2 game Saturday and the losers meet in the 3-4 game.
The 1-2 Page winner goes directly to Sunday night’s final. The 1-2 loser plays the 3-4 winner in the semifinal earlier that day.
The Brier winner will represent Canada at the April 2-10 world men’s curling championship in Las Vegas.
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