Sudbury's Sandy MacEwan rink secured its first victory at the Montana’s Brier, defeating Yukon's Thomas Scoffin team 9-8 in a close contest. The win came in the opening round-robin match for the Northern Ontario squad. MacEwan highlighted the team's resilience amid debut nerves at the national championship.
The Northern Ontario team, skipped by Sudbury curler Sandy MacEwan and featuring teammates Luc Ouimet, Dustin Montpellier, and Olivier Bonin-Ducharme, faced a tense battle against Yukon's Thomas Scoffin on Saturday at the 18-team Montana’s Brier. The match went down to the wire in the 10th end, where Northern Ontario, without the hammer, executed a precise shot. MacEwan curled his rock around two stones to land on the button, and Scoffin failed in two attempts to remove it, securing the 9-8 victory.
“It feels amazing,” MacEwan said during a Curling Canada media availability. “They popped that four on us and we just knew we had to hang tough and see what happens at the end. Fortunately, this time it went in our favour.”
MacEwan acknowledged the challenge of managing nerves at their first major event. “All day, you’re just kind of antsy waiting to go and then once you get out there, you feel that energy,” he noted. “We talked about it as a team that we were going to recognize that and realize that this is the biggest stage that three of us have ever curled on. Once we got settled in, the nerves were okay.”
The round-robin phase continues until Thursday, with teams divided into two pools. The top three from each pool will advance to playoffs starting Friday. Northern Ontario's next matchup is against New Brunswick's Team James Grattan in the morning, followed by an evening game versus Team Jamie Koe of the Northwest Territories.
