(CCA) Manitoba’s Jeff Stoughton, a nine-time Brier skip, is off the launching pad at the 2011 Tim Hortons Brier with four straight wins — his best Brier start since 2006 at Regina.
Team Manitoba (Photo: Michael Burns Photography)
“We’re making the easy ones, that’s for sure,” said Stoughton following a pair of convincing Sunday victories — 8-3 over Nova Scotia’s unit skipped by Shawn Adams of Halifax and 9-3 over winless Eddie MacKenzie of Prince Edward Island.
“We’re fortunate that the teams we’ve been playing haven’t been at their best and we’ve been jumping on our opportunities,” added Winnipeg’s Stoughton, who is directing third Jonathan Mead, second Reid Carruthers and veteran lead Steve Gould.
“You can always look back and say you could have been a little tighter here or a little less tight there but we’re playing darn good, it’s a long week and your best game has to be Sunday night (in the championship final).”
The 47-year-old Stoughton, a two-time champion, has been rated right up there with defending champion Alberta and Ontario as a Brier favourite at the John Labatt Centre. But he doesn’t face off with those teams until Tuesday (Ontario) and Wednesday (Alberta) nights.
Manitoba’s only foe today is Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie.
“If you can get off to a great start then you know your confidence level is going to be high as you’re going into those big games,” Stoughton assessed. “This is better than being 2-and-2 and having already played them. That way you can’t get back to them, so you’re going to have to get some help.”
Edmonton’s Kevin Martin, skipping Alberta’s defender, ran his Brier winning streak to three at London and 29 straight and won his 100th Brier tilt in an afternoon 8-2 clubbing of British Columbia’s Jim Cotter of Vernon. Earlier, the Olympic gold medallist drew cold to the button with his last rock to defeat James Grattan of New Brunswick 8-6.
Grattan (1-3) got out of the gate with a deuce and a steal of one but Martin turned the tables and assumed control with a stolen deuce in the eighth end when rubs and a picked rock appeared to sink the New Brunswick hopes.
In the final end, Grattan had his foe facing three counters but Martin had the path to the button and strong sweeping.
“I’d thrown it (the path) earlier in the game and it was real true,” said Martin who had watched his front-enders Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert drag his rock right to the lid.
“If I’m ever heavy they beat me up after the game.”
Martin claimed the sheet of ice was “tough and tricky”.
“It was tough to figure out where a rock would end up,” he said. “Some would curl across centre, some wouldn’t, some would hang, some wouldn’t, down the same path. We had freezes that under-curled a foot-and-a-half, some that over-curled a foot-and-a-half. We never did figure it out, really.
“We had to play a different game. Rather than trying to make shots exactly right, we tried to dumb it down a bit.
“It was just an interesting sheet of ice. Really good for the crowd! They had no idea whether we were going to make or miss the shot. Neither did we.”
Following the afternoon breeze, reporters asked Martin about how it felt to win 100, a total of 13 wins behind recordholder Russ Howard of Ontario and New Brunswick.
“You guys keep reminding me about that stuff,” said Martin, shrugging off the mark. “We’re not done yet, I don’t plan on retiring for a few more years yet and I don’t really want this to be my last Brier, so we’ll see.
“This was a big game for us, we played a lot better,” he said, adding he didn’t feel he curled very well in the morning against Grattan.
Brad Gushue of St. John’s and Steve Laycock’s Saskatchewan team lost their unbeaten status Sunday night, leaving the top two teams alone with unblemished records.