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Alberta is Final Bound at Brier

CALGARY, March 13, 2009 (CCA)– Alberta’s Kevin Martin will head into Sunday’s Tim Hortons Brier final in exactly the same position he was in heading into last year’s Brier final — holding the hammer, sporting an undefeated record and looking very much in control of his destiny.

Martin drew the four-foot with the last rock of the game to beat Ontario’s Glenn Howard 7-6 here Friday night in the Page Playoff 1 vs 2 game. The win advances Alberta straight through to Sunday’s Brier final. The victory also pushes Alberta’s record to 12-0 and extends their Brier record winning streak to 25 games, including their 13-0 championship run in Winnipeg last year.

It was the second time in as many nights that Alberta had beaten Ontario and Howard will now have to win Saturday night’s semi-final if he’s going have a chance to prove to Martin in the final that three times really is a charm for his Ontario squad.

Howard will play in the semi-final against the winner of Manitoba’s Jeff Stoughton vs Newfoundland’s Brad Gushue in Saturday morning’s Page Playoff 3 vs 4 game. The loser of that game will be eliminated.

Manitoba advanced to the 3 vs 4 game with a 6-3 victory earlier Friday over Quebec’s Jean-Michel Menard in a tiebreaker game that determined who claimed the fourth and final playoff spot.

Both Quebec and Manitoba finished the round-robin Thursday with identical 7-4 records. Newfoundland finished alone in third place with an 8-3 record and will hold hammer against Manitoba Saturday morning.

Friday night’s Howard-Martin matchup was another exceptionally well-played contest and it played out in a very similar fashion to Thursday night’s round-robin matchup between the two teams, with Howard challenging Martin throughout and looking like he had a chance to win several times.

But just as he did Thursday night, Martin rose to the occasion at game’s end Friday night and simply found a way. This time it was a masterfully played 10th end that forced Howard to take one with the hammer and send the game to an extra end — the first time Martin has had to play an extra frame this week.

With Howard lying two and one on the four-foot in the 11th end, Martin did not hesitate to call a draw with the last rock of the extra end. The Alberta skip was a little light out of his hand but Alberta sweepers Ben Hebert and Marc Kennedy simply dragged the rock to the full four-foot, where he out-counted Howard by barely an inch for the victory.

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