Saskatchewan earns opening-night win at 2024 Montana’s Brier

Saskatchewan overcame a slow start and earned a hard-fought win to kick off the 2024 Montana’s Brier on Friday.

Saskatchewan third Colton Flasch made a raise-double to clear out Prince Edward Island’s rocks in the 10th end.

“I didn’t really want to draw full-four, side-button against one or two and that’s what it was looking like — I was going to be in trouble,” said Saskatchewan skip Mike McEwen. “That was the game-winning shot. Mine wasn’t really the game-winning shot, it was Colton’s.”

Flasch’s shot allowed McEwen to hit and stick to score the final point needed in a 7-6 win at the Canadian men’s curling championship at the Brandt Centre.

“They pushed us really hard,” McEwen said. “They played better than I expected. They played well. I think they maybe made one little calling mistake that gave us a steal of two that kind of came out of nowhere.

“They were solid tonight and we really had to dig deep to pull that one out.”

After battling back from down 3-1 to tie things at three, McEwen threw a perfect draw with his final rock in the fifth end to put the pressure on P.E.I.’s Tyler Smith. Smith wasn’t able to knock out Saskatchewan’s rocks with his final throw, and McEwen ended up stealing two.

That gave McEwen’s rink — with Flasch, second Kevin Marsh and lead Dan Marsh — its first lead of the contest in front of a home crowd.

“It was awesome,” said Flasch, who is playing in a Brier for the first time in Saskatchewan. “It was so cool when everyone is cheering for you and you only. It was great.”

McEwen said he could feel the energy from the crowd when big shots were made.

“That’s the best feeling in the world — it’s like an adrenaline rush. I could get addicted to that all week,” McEwen said. “Hopefully we can keep doing that.”

Prince Edward Island got on the board first with a draw for the deuce from Smith.

McEwen had a chance for two in the second but a measurement showed P.E.I.’s yellow was closer than the second red, scoring a single for Saskatchewan.

Smith drew against three Saskatchewan rocks to score a single in the third.

McEwen hit a tricky double to eventually score two in the fourth end to knot things up at three.

The fifth was where McEwen scored the steal of two.

Smith scored two in the seventh and then the teams traded singles before McEwen came up with the winning point in the 10th end.

Saskatchewan is trying to earn its first Brier title since 1980, when Rick Folk skipped the team to victory.

In the other games of Draw 1, defending-champion Brad Gushue and Team Canada beat Nova Scotia’s Matthew Manuel 7-4, Alberta’s Aaron Sluchinski beat Alberta’s Kevin Koe 8-4, and the Northwest Territories’ Jamie Koe beat the Julien Tremblay rink from Quebec 7-4.

McEwen (1-0) will take on Team Canada (1-0) at 6 p.m. on Saturday.