Bottcher, Edin and Sluchinski secure second wins in KIOTI National
PICTOU COUNTY, N.S. — Brendan Bottcher and his Calgary club defeated Matt Dunstone’s Winnipeg team 7-2 Wednesday evening in the KIOTI National at the Pictou County Wellness Centre.
Bottcher, who is No. 1 in the world rankings, improved to a 2-0 record at the midway mark of pool play in the Grand Slam of Curling major tournament.
“It feels great,” Bottcher said. “The teams at Slams are just so tough you’ve just got to take any win that you can get.”
A pair of three-enders bookended the match with Bottcher counting his first trey in the second and another in the sixth that brought out early handshakes.
Even without the hammer, the house was full of Bottcher’s stones. Dunstone (0-2) had to draw against four in the third to score a single and pulled off a quad hit in the fifth for his other point.
“We got a little bit ahead on the scoreboard and then we were kind of dictating the pace of play,” said Bottcher, who also scored a single in the fourth. “I thought we played great out of the gate to get that scoreboard lead and then we kept the pressure on him.”
Two wins is no longer the safety zone in the Grand Slams with no tiebreaker games and draw-to-the-button shootout scores settling any logjams in the standings for the final playoff spots. With 14-time Grand Slam winner Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L., on tap, Bottcher said the key to keeping the momentum will simply be to “keep playing well, in all honesty.”
“We play a lot of these teams week in and week out and the only thing that really works is playing well, so just keep focusing on that,” Bottcher said. “Hopefully, we can get one if not two more wins here in the next couple of days and then we’ll be positioned well for the playoffs.”
Elsewhere in the draw, Niklas Edin and his squad from Sweden also climbed to a 2-0 mark after emerging victorious over Gushue (1-1) in a 6-3 set.
Although Team Gushue (92 per cent) outshot Team Edin (86 per cent), it was the ones they missed that ended up being costly.
“They probably played the better curling throughout but had some bad mistakes in the wrong situations and we took the chances we got,” Edin said. “At the end of it, I think we played a good enough game to get a chance to win and I’m super happy with the win. Being 2-0 instead of 1-1 is huge in these Slams now.”
Edin took his first lead of the game in the fifth with an unreal shot (or at least unreal to us mere mortals) making a double raise into three Gushue stones to score a deuce and pull ahead 3-2.
“We were in such trouble,” Edin said. “I think we should have done something with those double frozen rocks onto ours earlier in the end but we kind of elected not to. That was a massive problem the rest of the end. We were really in trouble giving up two or three stolen points against and then when he missed his draw, it felt like it was fairly lined up but I just threw one in exactly that spot.
“I knew it would be close and then obviously would need a little bit of luck for the angles to align and actually stick it for two. But I felt the draw for one was really tough and we were down in momentum the whole game until that point, so I felt this is probably the shot to win the game. It turned out to be a massive turning point, so I’m happy we chose that one.”
Gushue knotted it back up with a tap for a single in the sixth, but he left Edin an open hit to score three in the seventh and the six-time world champion was right on target.
Edin, who ran Gushue out of rocks in the eighth end, said he believed they’re in a tough group but that perhaps helped them prepare mentally as his team is also looking to stay sharp heading into the European Championships, which begin next week in Scotland.
“We knew that from the get-go we have to win as many games as we can,” Edin said. “Even if we play really well we might end up in a situation where we have 2-2 and the draw shot is important. So far, our draw shot isn’t great, it’s not bad but it’s not great either. I think we still need to focus on making good draws and get at least one win to kind of be safe. We’re going to just keep the pedal to the metal and keep winning hopefully.
“We haven’t started the season well at all, so kind of looking for that step forward from all four players basically and just getting some results and rolls our way too. I think if we can keep this momentum up and just keep winning that will be really good going into Europeans next week.”
Team Aaron Sluchinski of Airdrie, Alta., also reached a 2-0 record by stealing two in the seventh and another pair in the eighth to escape with a 6-4 win over Team John Shuster (0-2) from the United States.
Scotland’s Team Ross Whyte (1-1) got their first win by stealing singles in the seventh and eighth ends to win 7-5 over Halifax’s Team Owen Purcell (0-2).
KIOTI National: Scores/Standings | Draw Schedule | Broadcast Schedule
UP NEXT
The KIOTI National continues with Draw 8 at 8 p.m. local time (AT). Tickets are available at the Pictou County Wellness Centre box office and online at Ticketpro.ca.
Broadcast coverage begins Thursday at 11 a.m. ET / 8 a.m. PT on Sportsnet, Sportsnet+ (Canada) and GSOClive.com (international).
NOTES
The KIOTI National is the second event of the Grand Slam of Curling season featuring 16 of the top men’s teams and 16 of the top women’s teams from around the world. … Each team plays four round-robin games with the top eight advancing to Saturday’s quarterfinals. … The semifinals are also on tap Saturday with both finals scheduled for Sunday.
