Charlsewood's Jeff Stoughton is joined by Assiniboine Memorial's Mike McEwen in the championship final of the 2011 Safeway Championship final in Beausejour today. McEwen defeated Terry McNamee of Brandon in the semi-final 6-3 earlier this morning.
This is the final everybody wanted to see. This is a rematch of a year ago when Stoughton beat McEwen 9-8 in an extra end. McEwen was appointed the number 1 seed by his peers after a very successful cash season which included 2 grand slam wins. Stoughton is the defending champion with Steve Gould back at lead, new member Reid Carruthers at second and returning to the team at third Jon Mead.
You can catch this game right now on Shaw TV or logging into www.safewaychampionship.ca
Sunday, February 13, 2011
LIVE CHAT RIGHT NOW
Visiti the front page of The Last Rock Rock blog to chat and get some insight into the semi-final and final today with myself. If you want to stream the game live on your computer visit http://www.safewaychampionship.ca/.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Page Playoff and Live Chat
There are six teams left battling it out for the chance to represent Manitoba at this year’s Tim Hortons Brier. We know that either defending champion Jeff Stoughton of Charlsewood or Brandon’s Terry McNamee will be playing in tomorrow’s championship final. Both Stoughton and McNamee won two games in the playoff round to advance to the 1 versus 1 game of the page playoff tonight at 6:30 on Shaw. The loser will drop the semi-final to play against one of four teams. Either Fort Garry’s Vic Peters, Brandon’s Rob Fowler, Assiniboine Memorial’s Mike McEwen or La Salle’s Randy Neufeld. As we speak McEwen is playing Neufeld and Fowler is facing off against Peters.
I often have misconceptions of how games are played out that I don’t see. McNamee defeated McEwen earlier today by a score of 9-4. When I arrived at the Sun Gro Centre in Beausejour Resby Coutts informed me that those two teams were tied 4-4 playing the ninth end. McNamee went on to score a 5 ender and defeat McEwen 9-4. I was not too surprised to hear that the game had been a close affair. Not many teams can blow out McEwen in a few ends.
I will be hosting a chat room on my blog for tomorrow morning’s semi-final and final. Please come online and login while I give some play-by-play and analysis. Both games will be streamed live on the Safeway Championship website.
I often have misconceptions of how games are played out that I don’t see. McNamee defeated McEwen earlier today by a score of 9-4. When I arrived at the Sun Gro Centre in Beausejour Resby Coutts informed me that those two teams were tied 4-4 playing the ninth end. McNamee went on to score a 5 ender and defeat McEwen 9-4. I was not too surprised to hear that the game had been a close affair. Not many teams can blow out McEwen in a few ends.
I will be hosting a chat room on my blog for tomorrow morning’s semi-final and final. Please come online and login while I give some play-by-play and analysis. Both games will be streamed live on the Safeway Championship website.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Corey Chambers and Stu Shiels Interview
Corey expresses his thoughts on his first Safeway Championship and Stu talks about his injury what kept him from curling in the Safeway Championship.
How many teams can really win the Brier?
I am currently watching B qualifying games at the Sun Gro Centre in Beausejour when the thought of how many teams can win the Brier? It is a very interesting question indeed and it makes you think that it could be less than a handful. The Olympics have changed our game forever where teams pay more attentions to of ice training than ever before.
Three teams are automatic that could win the brier: Kevin Martin, Glenn Howard and Kevin Koe. The last person other than those three to have his name engraved on the tankard was Jean-Michel Menard of Quebec. Interestingly enough Menard defeated Glenn Howard of the final that year. Howard's team has now played in the last 4 out of 5 Brier finals which is a phenomenal accomplishment for a team. In the year that he did not make the final he lost to Jeff Stoughton in the semi-final.
Now to consider the teams that are in the discussion that has the ability to win the Brier: Mike McEwen, Jeff Stoughton, Wayne Middaugh, Pat Simmons, and Brad Gushue. Mike McEwen is probably the one team that you could sandwich in between the first and second tiers. I left off Randy Ferbey’s old team because they have taken a break from curling.
Let us take a step outside the box and imagine that all the previous listed all qualified for the Brier from different provinces. We will take all of the teams at their current skill and commitment levels. The Brier then would be played out one hundred times and we would see how many different teams would win. I would guess that at least ninety out of those one hundred Briers would be won the likes of Martin, Howard, Koe & McEwen.
It may seem like a staggering number that I am guessing these four teams would win ninety percent of the Briers but that is just the case. These four teams off ice work are well documented in the media and the results prove that it is paying off. Until curlers are 100% dedicated to their sport and not have to worry about working their will be no parody in Curling. Over the next 3-5 years many of the curling elite will retire from competitive curling and that is when we will be seeing the changing of the guard. John Morris, Brad Gushue & Mike McEwen are becoming the next Kevin Martin, Glenn Howard & Jeff Stoughton of the world. The next generation of young curlers will put even more into training than the teams today. Depending on the number of people that take up intense training will determine how much parody there is in curling.
Three teams are automatic that could win the brier: Kevin Martin, Glenn Howard and Kevin Koe. The last person other than those three to have his name engraved on the tankard was Jean-Michel Menard of Quebec. Interestingly enough Menard defeated Glenn Howard of the final that year. Howard's team has now played in the last 4 out of 5 Brier finals which is a phenomenal accomplishment for a team. In the year that he did not make the final he lost to Jeff Stoughton in the semi-final.
Now to consider the teams that are in the discussion that has the ability to win the Brier: Mike McEwen, Jeff Stoughton, Wayne Middaugh, Pat Simmons, and Brad Gushue. Mike McEwen is probably the one team that you could sandwich in between the first and second tiers. I left off Randy Ferbey’s old team because they have taken a break from curling.
Let us take a step outside the box and imagine that all the previous listed all qualified for the Brier from different provinces. We will take all of the teams at their current skill and commitment levels. The Brier then would be played out one hundred times and we would see how many different teams would win. I would guess that at least ninety out of those one hundred Briers would be won the likes of Martin, Howard, Koe & McEwen.
It may seem like a staggering number that I am guessing these four teams would win ninety percent of the Briers but that is just the case. These four teams off ice work are well documented in the media and the results prove that it is paying off. Until curlers are 100% dedicated to their sport and not have to worry about working their will be no parody in Curling. Over the next 3-5 years many of the curling elite will retire from competitive curling and that is when we will be seeing the changing of the guard. John Morris, Brad Gushue & Mike McEwen are becoming the next Kevin Martin, Glenn Howard & Jeff Stoughton of the world. The next generation of young curlers will put even more into training than the teams today. Depending on the number of people that take up intense training will determine how much parody there is in curling.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Gushue/Ferbey
As I browse on CurlingZone today I noticed the thread about the splitting of the Gushue/Ferbey experiment. Ferby made comments about the way Gushue runs his team and Ryan Fry defended Gushue with some not so flattering words about Ferbey. You can read both blog articles on Al Cameron's blog.
Al Cameron had permission to publish Ryan Fry's email response on his blog. Many people have said that Ryan Fry is being very immature and I tend to agree with the majority. Fry could have said what he said in a much more politically correct way. But it makes me think that the relationship between Gushue and Ferbey was doomed from the start from how harsh Fry's comments were. Also there is more beneath the surface of Fry's comments than most of us can see. He gave Al Cameron permission to post his email for a reason.
Randy Ferbey was trying to clearly state that Brad Gushue is a control freak in the nicest way possible. Mark Nichols has curled for Brad Gushue for a very long time and Ryan Fry has curled with Brad for a few years. Jamie Korab has been kicked off the team and brought back on more times than I can shake a stick at. When I watch Brad Gushue I get a sense that he not completely comfortable on the ice. Ever since his Gold Medal in 2006 something Gushue has seemed different. It might be time for Gushue to call up Russ Howard and get some advice. It will take time but Brad Gushue will figure it out and become a better curler than he has ever been.
Al Cameron had permission to publish Ryan Fry's email response on his blog. Many people have said that Ryan Fry is being very immature and I tend to agree with the majority. Fry could have said what he said in a much more politically correct way. But it makes me think that the relationship between Gushue and Ferbey was doomed from the start from how harsh Fry's comments were. Also there is more beneath the surface of Fry's comments than most of us can see. He gave Al Cameron permission to post his email for a reason.
Randy Ferbey was trying to clearly state that Brad Gushue is a control freak in the nicest way possible. Mark Nichols has curled for Brad Gushue for a very long time and Ryan Fry has curled with Brad for a few years. Jamie Korab has been kicked off the team and brought back on more times than I can shake a stick at. When I watch Brad Gushue I get a sense that he not completely comfortable on the ice. Ever since his Gold Medal in 2006 something Gushue has seemed different. It might be time for Gushue to call up Russ Howard and get some advice. It will take time but Brad Gushue will figure it out and become a better curler than he has ever been.
Scott Madams Interview
Scott Madams after his 11-5 victory over Don Homles from the Willow Park out of Fin Flon.
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