HALIFAX, March 9, 2010 (CCA) — How often do they notch six-enders at the Brier?

That’s a count of six in one end? How about seven times, since the Brier game went to a playoff format in 1980.  Oh, and Prince Edward Island stole one seven-ender during that span, too.

But nobody remembers a winless team like Ian Fitzner-LeBlanc’s Nova Scotians hammering Alberta with a big six points.  It transpired during the 10th draw of the 81st Canadian championship at the Metro Centre on Tuesday afternoon.

Going in, Alberta was 4-and-1, homestanding Nova Scotia was 0-and-5.  Strangely thereafter, Fitzner-LeBlanc and his team of Stuart MacLean, Kent Smith and Phil Crowell had to hang on by its fingernails to finally record a wild 13-8 victory in nine ends over Kevin Koe of Edmonton.

“We got up early with some good play,” explained the Nova Scotia skip, “took a 5-0 lead and they got a deuce back won a great shot by Koe. So we just decided we wanted to keep the zeroes off the board and find away to score. He was very aggressive, trying to get back into it, Stuart and I made doubles and he rubbed on his last one. So it was a half-rock in for six.”

Then what happened? Did complacency set in?

“I wouldn’t like to think so but it certainly may have appeared that way,” said Fitzner-LeBlanc.  “We were focused, I think. They played a solid second half and when you’re playing one of the top teams in the world, which is what they are, it’s tough to match them shot-for-shot. But a win’s a win, the scoreboard doesn’t take pictures, and we’re happy.”

Prince Edward Island’s Peter Gallant posted the last six-ender recorded at the Brier, clubbing Nova Scotia’s Brian Rafuse 13-3 in 2008 at Winnipeg.

There have been six other six-enders scored since 1980 with Randy Ferbey of Alberta (2004), Wayne Middaugh of Ontario (2001), Russ Howard of Ontario (1987), Larry Pineau of Northern Ontario (1987), Al Delmage of The Territories (1987) and Ed Lukowich of Alberta (1984) posting the big ends.

Current Island lead Andrew Robinson skipped P.E.I. to the only seven-ender in recent Brier history, and a steal of seven to boot,  at Saskatoon in 2000. Robinson’s victim was Shawn Adams of Nova Scotia.

“We were down so we had to gamble and we didn’t make our shots,” explained Koe. “You can’t play just to keep the score close, you try to get back into it and it didn’t go our way. You get down three in the first end, it’s tough to come back against anyone.”

In other Tuesday afternoon games, frontrunner Glenn Howard of Ontario stretched his winning streak to seven games with a 9-5 victory over fading Darrell McKee of Saskatchewan (2-5) while Brad Gushue of Newfoundland/Labrador broke open a tight-fit with four in the eighth end and defeated Jeff Richard of British Columbia (2-4) by 7-5.

With the win, Gushue pulled even with idle Manitoba at 5-and-1. Alberta’s loss dropped the Koe team to 4-and-2, a half-game behind Serge Reid’s surprise Quebec entry, which won its fifth game against two losses with an 8-7 extra-end win over Rod MacDonald of Prince Edward Island.

On Tuesday morning, Glenn Howard’s foursome from Coldwater, Ont., stayed perfect (6-0) by clobbering Prince Edward Island (1-5) by an 8-2 count. Jeff Stoughton’s Manitobans (5-1) kept pace by running up a 10-3 score on the winless Territories (0-6).

In today’s 11th draw, which got underway at 7:30 p.m., Alberta collides with Jeff Stoughton of Manitoba in the feature match. Elsewhere, Newfoundland/Labrador takes on New Brunswick, Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs (4-and-2) tackles B.C. and Nova Scotia goes against the winless Territories team that will be without skip Jamie Koe, who will write a chartered accountant’s exam at St. Mary’s University.

The Big Four are still the Big Four…so far

By Larry Wood
Tankard Times Editor

HALIFAX, March 8, 2010 — Going in, the experts were calling them the Brier’s Big Four.

Three days and eight draws later, they still are the Big Four —Ontario at 5-and-0, Manitoba, Alberta and Newfoundland/Labrador at 4-and-1.

So how easy was this Tim Hortons Brier, presented by Monsanto, at the Metro Centre to handicap?

“There’s a long way to go,” said St. John’s skip Brad Gushue by way of a warning on Monday night. “A lot of big teams still have to play one another and a couple of others aren’t out of it, either.”

Nevertheless, the preliminary round robin barely is at the halfway mark Tuesday morning during Draw Nine with eight more draws to follow.

Glenn Howard and his favoured Coldwater crew extended its winning streak to five Monday night with a 9-3 runaway from winless Nova Scotia skipped by Ian Fitzner-LeBlanc. Earlier in the day, Howard and his team of Richard Hart, Brent Laing and Craig Savill defeated New Brunswick’s James Grattan 7-4.

“We’re good!” exclaimed Howard afterward, slightly understating the case.

“I was a little ticked off in the first end, I threw one that didn’t curl quite enough and he stole one,” said the Ontario skip. “But he (Fitzner-LeBlanc) gave it right back in the next end, threw it a little wide and we got two and after that we pretty well controlled it.”

Winnipeg’s Jeff Stoughton, who suffered his lone defeat Saturday night (to Brad Jacobs of Northern Ontario) stretched Manitoba’s win skein to three by doubling Quebec’s Brier rookie Serge Reid by a 6-3 score in the afternoon. It was the only match of the day for the Bison Boys.

“They seemed a little inexperienced, a couple of questionable calls here and there,” said Stoughton of his foe from Saguenay country. “But they throw pretty good so they deserve to be here.”

The Quebeckers (3-2) proved that on the night shift, scoring a 10th-end deuce for an 8-7 decision against British Columbia’s Jeff Richard.

“We wanted to take away his easy draw for two but my guard over-curled,” said Richard of his last rock in the 10th end. “They played better than us, though, and deserved to win the game.”

Reid paints his team “an underdog” and said “that helps us”.  Teams don’t know us but we know them,” he said. “We can play with every team here.”

He had the tying point stashed in the four-foot and when Richard left him an avenue, he drew the last rock to the middle circle for the winning pair.

The B.C. skip was far hotter in the morning when he directed a 7-5 victory over Alberta’s Kevin Koe.

Newfie’s Gushue rebounded from a Sunday night loss to Alberta’s Koe and turned in a pair of Monday successes — 10-3 over the Bluenosers in the morning and 7-3 over Rod MacDonald’s Prince Edward Islanders (1-4) on the late shift.  PEI won their first game of the competition in the afternoon draw, a 9-3 drubbing of Jamie Koe’s winless Territories team from Yellowknife. PEI play Ontario and Quebec in the first two draws on Tuesday.

“We were strong in the second half of that last game,” said Gushue, “and that’s a good building block going into the next games.”

Alberta bounced back at night to throttle Darrell McKee of Saskatchewan 9-5 with three-enders in the sixth and eighth panels. A cross-rings double-kill from Koe for the initial triple was the game’s turning point.

“That shot is our bread and butter,” Koe said. “To miss that one would have left him (McKee) with a steal and a two-point lead. It would have been deflating to lose two in one day.”