Brier Takeaways: Ontario’s Jayden King earns respect from curling legends

Ontario’s Jayden King may have received his first career Montana’s Brier loss on Sunday while facing six-time national champion Brad Gushue, but the rookie skip gained something much more valuable than any win or loss.

Respect. 

It can be intimidating for anyone making their first Brier appearance to play a top team like Gushue. Then, add the fact Gushue is playing in his hometown of St. John’s and this was the first-ever televised game for King and his full rookie rink from Ontario. 

Simply put, it would be frightening.

However, for King, just 23 years old and second youngest skip in the competition, he shined despite the loss. 

It started in the fourth end when Ontario was down 3-1 with the hammer. Gushue was sitting one in the top four-foot leaving King with no chance to draw or hit the stone. So, King had to attempt a long-angled slash with his first rock. He made it, no problem. But thanks to another great draw by Gushue, King had to throw another angled slash from the other side of the sheet to score one. 

He made the second one look even easier than the first to score one and make it a 3-2 game.

Most players, especially at his age, would want to throw big weight and not think about keeping the shooter. Since both were quiet weight hits, it gave the team more of a chance to work the stone to make each shot. 

King showed even more poise in the eighth end, though, when his team was down 6-3 and was facing two on his last shot. Once again, the rookie played a soft weight tap-back on his own stone to put it right on the button to score his single.

Gushue’s longtime teammates Mark Nichols and Geoff Walker, who also have six Brier championships as well, had seen enough. 

They told the skipper he made a great shot on his way down the ice.  

King couldn’t help himself but smile and say, “thank you Mark, thank you Geoff.”

Even though Ontario as a whole chased most of the game, King now knows he belongs on the same sheet of ice with some of the best to ever play the game. Surely a confidence boost going forward.

Manitoba Dunstone looks calm

It was a long seven weeks for Matt Dunstone and his Manitoban rink of Colton Lott, E.J. Harnden, Ryan Harnden between the final Grand Slam of Curling event and the Brier.

In an Olympic year, the season started off great for Dunstone. His rink reached the first three GSOC finals of the season, winning one of them. Going into the Canadian Trials last November, he was considered the favourite because of the team's play leading up to the event, which included going 3-0 versus Brad Jacobs.

As we all know, Jacobs beat Dunstone in the finals to advance to the Olympics, where he won gold. 

Afterwards, it wasn’t pretty for Dunstone at the two remaining GSOC events. He couldn’t recover mentally and it hurt his team as they went 0-4 and 3-2, missing the playoffs in both.

All of that to say, through two games at the Brier, Dunstone’s play and calling of the game looks a lot more like the beginning of the season. Which is good, not only for him, but E.J. as he also is retiring at the end of the season. 

The whole team is playing with more confidence and they’re letting the games come to them rather than chasing whatever their opponent is trying to do.  

Jacobs benefiting from schedule

You could tell the first two games the defending Brier champions led by Jacobs didn’t have their legs under them as they were trying to adjust back to a North American time zone. 

In their first game without a sick Ben Hebert, Canada shot 77 per cent. In their second match, with Hebert back in the lineup, they improved to 87 per cent, but Jacobs himself struggled at 76 per cent.

However, in Sunday’s 11-2 victory against Nunavut they looked exactly like the team that beat World No. 1 ranked Bruce Mouat for the Olympic gold medal just over a week ago. As a rink, they curled 93 per cent with the lowest being Hebert at 91.

Of course, they’re one of the best teams in the world, so you kind of expect this type of dominance against weaker opponents in the early days of this bonspiel. But a big reason they’re rapidly improving with each match is the schedule working in their favour. 

So far, they’ve only had to play once a day and that will continue until Wednesday, the second last day of round robin and five days after the event has started. Considering the short turnaround from the Olympics, having the ability to rest and recharge their bodies between matches should make the round-robin easier for them. 

Gushue’s schedule is set up the same way for Pool A. Dunstone and Team Manitoba Calvert are on a similar footing as well for Pool B but will play twice on Tuesday.  

Team Saskatchewan McEwen needs to pick up their play

Yes, Team Saskatchewan Mike McEwen is 2-1 right now, but through three games the whole Saskatchewan rink outside of Dan Marsh has struggled. 

Mainly for two reasons: First, and the obvious one, they’re just not making enough shots consistently to go far in this tournament, especially McEwen himself. Second, the line calls haven’t been great.

Against Alberta’s Team Kevin Koe on Sunday, they had chances to score multiple points in more than just the fifth end where they scored two, but either a complete miss out of the hand or a missed line call hurt them throughout the match.  

For nine ends though, McEwen was able to keep it together and stay in the game. What’s the saying though? If you play with fire, you will get burned.

That’s exactly what happened in the 10th end as on McEwen’s final shot without the hammer, he had a chance draw buried. If made, he would have left Koe with virtually nothing to score. However, McEwen just plain missed and slid so far Koe had an easy shot for three and the win.

Based on how they’ve played, it’s fair to question if missing the playoffs is a possibility.