SAULT STE. MARIE, Ont. — Mike McEwen defeated hometown hero Brad Jacobs 5-2 to win his fourth career Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling title at the National Sunday in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
The Winnipeg rink of McEwen, B.J. Neufeld, Matt Wozniak and Denni Neufeld also moved into the top spot on the World Curling Tour’s order of merit list.
Team McEwen has been on an incredible roll this season winning their first four tournaments and reaching the finals of the first leg of the Grand Slam series at the Masters earlier this month.
“It feels like a lot of validation of the things that we’re doing as a team,” McEwen said, “and that feels really good.”
Jacobs, the Sochi Olympics gold medallist, trailed 4-2 with the hammer coming home but couldn’t get the deuce in the final end to send it into an extra frame and gave up a single steal that iced the game.
McEwen grabbed the lead with a single in the fifth and a steal of one in seven. Jacobs went big to attempt to score two in the seventh but nudged McEwen’s shot rock closer to the pin.
It didn’t start off too well for McEwen as he attempted an angle raise takeout to score two in the first but missed and gave up one. He then looked to score three in the second but couldn’t push Jacobs’ rock out far enough and was held to just one point to tie it 1-1.
Jacobs attempted to knock out McEwen’s shot rock on the button in three but couldn’t get it to roll far enough but settled for one in the fourth to knot it up again. McEwen tried to blank the fifth with a runback but couldn’t get the rock to roll out and took one.
“It was intense,” McEwen admitted. “I didn’t feel normal through the first four ends. I was a little shaky, I wasn’t feeling myself but the boys played so well in front of me that despite me being a little bit off that they hung in there, made a lot of shots in front of me, and I was able to make some big ones for the team at the end.”
Team McEwen won the World Cup of Curling (now known as the Masters) and the Canadian Open during the 2010-11 season and captured another Canadian Open title in 2011-12.