News Players' Championship

TORONTO — Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen is riding a four-game winning streak into the playoffs at the WestJet Players’ Championship.

McEwen eliminated Edmonton’s Brendan Bottcher from the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling tournament with a 7-3 win during Draw 10 Friday morning.

The six-time Grand Slam title winner McEwen fell to Reid Carruthers in his opener and rebounded with wins over Kevin Koe, John Morris and defending champion Brad Gushue.

“We kind of knew we were throwing it good against Reid’s team, just a couple unfortunate breaks,” Team McEwen second Matt Wozniak said. “Our attitudes have been pretty good moving forward, just staying positive. The old ‘one game at a time’ thing has been working out.”

After splitting singles to start, McEwen drew for two in the third to pull ahead. The deuce was the difference as it was singles alternating in the following four ends. Bottcher (1-4) held the hammer coming home and faced a few, but couldn’t pull off the tricky shot as he only took out one and his shooter rolled away.

Wozniak cited the five-rock rule, where teams must wait until the sixth rock of play to remove guards from the free-guard zone, for keeping things close.

“It’s always a grind and that’s sort of the beauty of five rock,” Wozniak said. “You can’t just get a two-point lead and run the game out like you can in the other four-rock rule. So you’re always grinding. Even in our game against Morris, we were up 6-2 or whatever it was, or 5-2, and they came back and made it close.”

Team McEwen has won the other three majors in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling series and is a Players’ Championship away from completing a career Grand Slam.

McEwen’s crew is heading to the Toronto Blue Jays game and hoping to bring their winning vibes to help out the ball club.

“Hopefully the Jays can get their act together and win a game tonight,” Wozniak said with a smile.

Elsewhere, Scotland’s Kyle Smith edged Olympic gold medallist Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., 5-4. Smith and Jacobs have 3-1 records and are through to the next round.

Sweden’s Niklas Edin scored four in the second to clip Saskatoon’s Steve Laycock 6-5. Laycock settled for a lone point in the first, but couldn’t close the gap after Edin’s four-spot in two with singles back and forth through the next five ends. Edin looked at a couple on his last in eight and just needed to make one disappear. Both teams hold 2-2 records with one round-robin game to go each.

Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge, Alta., climbed to a 3-1 record with a 7-4 victory over China’s Bingyu Wang (1-3).

Scheidegger earned a stunning 7-2 victory Thursday evening over Rachel Homan to snap the world champ’s 17-game win streak by stealing five points in three ends.

Round-robin action at the WestJet Players’ Championship continues Friday at Noon ET.

NOTES: The WestJet Players’ Championship is the fourth major and sixth event of the 2016-17 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season and runs through to Sunday at Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre. … The Rogers Grand Slam Cup will be awarded to the overall season champions following the conclusion of the WestJet Players’ Championship. … Winners of the WestJet Players’ Championship will earn berths to the Humpty’s Champions Cup running April 25-30 in Calgary.