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Einarson upends Fleury in Draw 3 of Masters

TRURO, N.S. — Kerri Einarson picked up her first win in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling with her brand-new team at the Canadian Beef Masters.

Einarson, from Gimli, defeated her former teammates now playing on Team Fleury of East St. Paul 7-3 in an all-Manitoba battle during the third round-robin draw Wednesday.

“It’s so exciting,” Einarson said. “I’m glad to get our first win here in Truro.”

This start of the new Olympic cycle brought a flurry of lineup changes with Einarson now guiding former skips Val Sweeting at third, Shannon Birchard at second and Briane Meilleur at lead. Third Selena Njegovan, second Liz Fyfe and lead Kristin MacCuish stayed together after leaving Team Einarson and added skip Tracy Fleury from Sudbury, Ont.

Einarson knew she would face off against them eventually in round-robin play, and right off of the bat to boot, but said it wasn’t awkward at all.

“It was weird shaking their hands, of course, but it wasn’t weird at all,” Einarson said.

Einarson opened with the hammer and converted for a deuce in the first. After forcing Fleury to one point in the second, Einarson matched with a single in four and stole two in the fifth to extend her lead to 5-1. Fleury narrowed the gap with a deuce in the sixth but Einarson replied with a pair of points right back in the seventh.

After a bit of a rocky eighth end with Meilleur hogging a rock and Birchard throwing one through the rings, Einarson righted the ship with a double on her first skip stone and the teams shook hands as Fleury’s shot sailed through the rings.

“It was key that we just stuck with the process,” Einarson said. “Val made a nice one, just chapped off a little bit, but that was OK and got a little lucky and they rolled out. I made the double there so it was good.”

The Canadian Beef Masters is the second event and first major of the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season taking place at Rath Eastlink Community Centre and featuring 15 of the top men’s teams and 15 of the top women’s teams from around the world. Divisions are split into three pools for round-robin play during the week with the top eight overall qualifying for Saturday’s quarterfinals. The semifinals and finals are set for Sunday.

Canadian Beef Masters: Tickets | Scores | Standings | Schedule | Broadcast Schedule

Elsewhere in Draw 3, Team Jamie Sinclair of the U.S. stole two in the seventh and one more in the eighth to edge Edmonton’s Team Laura Walker 7-6.

Winnipeg’s Team Reid Carruthers battled back to beat Team Jason Gunnlaugson of Morris 8-4 in another all-Manitoba matchup. The game also featured old teammates duking it out with former Team McEwen lead Denni Neufeld now playing second for Gunnlaugson while Mike McEwen is throwing fourth for Carruthers. McEwen’s old second Matt Wozniak is subbing for Team Carruthers’ Derek Samagalski, who is back home as his fiancee gave birth to a daughter Wednesday morning.

McEwen said it’s good to play alongside Wozniak once again.

“One thing that stuck out to me that he said recently is that he’s excited to play,” McEwen said. “That’s really cool to hear that from him. He’s enjoying himself, he’s sparing and playing events because he wants to. It’s kind of nice to see him come out and he’s played well. This is his second event with us. He played really well last event too at lead. I’m happy to have him.”

Down 4-1 after three, Carruthers chipped the deficit with a single in the fourth followed by a steal of two in the fifth. Carruthers pirated single points in six and seven and tacked on two more in the eighth.

“We’re grinders and the guys seem to play really good back-half of games. That’s been kind of the theme this year,” McEwen said. “We’re just a little rough out of the gate. They put a lot of pressure on us so they deserved the lead, just we’ll tighten that up a little bit.

“It’s really nice to see, we made a lot of good pressure shots and draws, really good placement in the back half of that game. It’s nice to see in the first outing of the event.”

Toronto’s Team John Epping earned a 7-5 victory over Team Yannick Schwaller of Switzerland.

Team Kevin Koe hit to score four points in the eighth end to lift his Calgary crew to an 8-5 win against Halifax’s Team Jamie Murphy.

Round-robin action continues Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. AT. Broadcast coverage begins Thursday at 11:30 a.m. AT (10:30 a.m. ET) on Sportsnet and online at Sportsnet NOW (Canada) and Yare (global).

NOTES: Winners take home $30,000 of the $250,000 total purse plus berths to the season-ending Humpty’s Champions Cup in April. … Points are also on the line for the Pinty’s Cup, which is awarded to the overall season champions following the conclusion of the Players’ Championship.

Jan. 14-19, 2025 Sleeman Centre Guelph, ON