McEwen aiming to go ‘full distance’ at Princess Auto Players’ Championship
TORONTO — Mike McEwen has reached the final in the Princess Auto Players’ Championship three times at the Mattamy Athletic Centre and all three times he’s finished runner-up.
The title remains the last one for McEwen to cross off the list and complete a career Grand Slam. While that might be enough of a motivating factor for the skip, there’s also more at stake this week for his Saskatoon squad as they’re in the hunt for a pre-qualifying spot for next year’s Brier and funding to for the national team program.
“To be honest, this is my favourite event of the year,” said McEwen, who has won seven titles in the series. “I’ve lost three Players’ Championship finals on last rock in this building. Man, I think this the only of the original four core Grand Slams, majors I would call them, this is the one I don’t have that I would really like. That alone gives me a lot of drive to do well. Traditionally I’ve had quite a lot of success in this building, just haven’t been able to quite take it all the way.
“That would cap off a really good season for us. We’re very happy with what we’ve been able to do in year one and hopefully, we can go full distance here.”
McEwen is in good standing to start the event defeating Ross Whyte’s Scottish squad 6-1 during Draw 6 Wednesday afternoon to pick up his second straight win.
“We played I think two of the top five teams in the world,” said McEwen, who also beat Joël Retornaz’s Italian team on Tuesday. “Wow, 2-0. Awesome but no lead feels safe. It doesn’t matter whether you’re playing a top five team or anybody in the Players’ field for that matter, top 12. It feels like you can’t let your foot off the gas. Head down and keep going but what an amazing start for us.”
McEwen opened with the hammer and converted with an open hit for a key deuce in the first end.
“That was big,” McEwen said. “They actually probably got a little bit unfortunate in the first end. I think it was shaping up where it was going to be a force more likely than not, so getting that two-point lead, I thought we settled in the middle half of the game and played really well.
“There wasn’t anything glaring out there that I would have changed. I thought we actually played a solid seven ends, didn’t get in a lot of trouble and put a lot of pressure on them.”
Whyte (1-1) came up short on a draw in the third to give up a steal to fall behind 3-0. The reigning Scottish champion Whyte broke the shutout with a single in the fourth, however, that was all the offence his team could generate. McEwen took one in the fifth and stole back-to-back singles in the sixth and seventh.
Elsewhere in Draw 6, recently crowned world champions Team Niklas Edin of Sweden scored three in the sixth and stole three in the seventh during a 7-2 win over Calgary’s Team Brendan Bottcher.
Edin improved to a 1-1 record while Bottcher dropped to 0-2.
In women’s play, world champions Team Rachel Homan of Ottawa brushed aside Sweden’s Team Anna Hasselborg 7-1 in only four ends.
Homan, who now holds an outstanding 64-6 record on the season, scored three in the first and stole one in the second for an early 4-0 hold on the game.
Hasselborg (1-1) looked to blank the third, however, her shooter remained in the rings to count for one.
Homan had an open draw to score four in the fourth and came up light, but the count of three was enough for Hasselborg to concede.
South Korea’s Eunji Gim also climbed to a 2-0 record with an 8-7 decision against Winnipeg’s Team Kaitlyn Lawes (0-2).
UP NEXT
The Princess Auto Players’ Championship continues with Draw 7 at 7:30 p.m. ET. Tickets are available at the Mattamy Athletic Centre box office and online at Ticketmaster.ca.
Broadcast coverage begins with Draw 9 Thursday at 11:30 a.m. ET on Sportsnet, Sportsnet+ (Canada) and gsoclive.com (international).
NOTES
The Princess Auto Players’ Championship is the fifth and final Grand Slam of Curling event of the 2023-24 season featuring the top 12 men’s teams and top 12 women’s teams from around the world. … Both divisions are split into two pools of six for round-robin play. The best six teams advance to the playoffs with the top two teams receiving byes to the semifinals. If necessary, a tiebreaker round will be played Saturday morning to determine the final playoff berths. … The quarterfinals and semifinals are scheduled for Saturday with the finals on tap Sunday.
