KOE AND JACOBS DOMINATE EARLY BRIER OPPONENTS
Unbeaten rinks cruise through round robin, but it’s the championship pool that counts
As far as Kevin Koe is concerned, the Tim Hortons Brier starts now.
The Alberta skip has rolled to a 7-0 record in Pool B play and looks to be one of the favourites to get into the playoff round come Saturday, but first his team will have to play the four toughest games of the week in the championship pool.
“I like where we’re at,” Koe said Wednesday morning after a 13-2 win over Nunavut (Dave St. Louis) at the Canadian men’s curling championship.
“We’re (7-0) and we’ve still got a bit of room to improve, but it’s still only Wednesday, pretty much halfway through this thing. There’s lots of games to go and I like the way we’re trending.”
Yes, Koe’s Calgary foursome has been steamrollering so far, but the veteran skip knows his team hasn’t even played the very best opposition yet.
That would be the Brad Jacobs team from Northern Ontario, a squad that has absolutely dominated in Pool A, also going 7-0.
Northern Ontario has certainly been the talk of the Brier so far — with Jacobs, third Ryan Fry and second E.J. Harnden all leading their positions in curling percentage — but Koe hasn’t been paying attention.
“I haven’t seen them play and I don’t worry about it,” said Koe, whose team closed out Pool B play with a 7-5 win over Nova Scotia Wednesday night at Westoba Place.
“They always dominate the round robin at this event, it seems. Whereas, we just have to be our best come the final weekend. Whoever is playing the best by the end wins.”
Alberta moved to 7-0 with a 7-5 win over Nova Scotia on Wednesday night. Team Canada (Brad Gushue) finished second in the pool at 6-1, while B.C. (Jim Cotter) and Ontario (Scott McDonald) also moved on to the championship pool at 4-3.
In Pool A, 6-1 Team Wild Card (Brendan Bottcher) will join Northern Ontario in the championship pool, as will 4-3 Saskatchewan (Kirk Muyres) and 4-3 Manitoba (Mike McEwen).
Northern Ontario hasn’t played a full 10-end game yet in going 7-0 and Jacobs has never had to make his last shot for a win.
“We’re probably as fresh as we can be at this point,” Jacobs said after a 10- 5 win over Yukon (Jon Solberg) on Wednesday.
“I don’t think we could feel any better. We’re fortunate that we haven’t had to go the distance. We’ll take it all day long, but we know that going the distance is going to happen very soon here.”
It’s been a fine tournament so far for Team Alberta, which includes third B.J. Neufeld, second Colton Flasch and lead Ben Hebert.
Koe is curling 86 per cent, third among skips, while Neufeld is second among thirds (87 per cent), Flasch is seventh among seconds (82 per cent) and Hebert is the top lead (93 per cent).
It’s been an impressive run for the top team in the Canadian Team Ranking System standings this season considering it’s a new team, formed since last season.
While the struggles of the Manitoba team that was formed this season have been well documented and discussed — top Manitoba skips Mike McEwen and Reid Carruthers joined forces this year and have had a rollercoaster ride of a season — there have been no such concerns with the Koe foursome.
Neufeld and Flasch are the newcomers, joining Koe and Hebert, who represented Canada at the Olympics in South Korea last February.
“Every team is different,” Koe said. “(McEwen’s team) has had their struggles for sure, but it’s been pretty smooth for us. We’ve been super consistent, in the playoffs in every event we’ve played. It’s probably a bit to do with personalities. We really are getting along as a foursome on and off the ice.”
Koe can certainly identify with the struggles of McEwen’s rink. He formed a “super team” in 2015, with Marc Kennedy at third, Brent Laing at second and Ben Hebert at lead. All of them were world champions, two of them Olympic gold medallists. But the results weren’t there right away.
That team struggled through the season and made it to the Brier, but went 6-5 and missed the playoffs.
“With that team, that was more of a struggle our first year,” Koe said. “We got off to a decent start, but it was fairly mediocre after that. We enjoyed each other for sure, but meshing took a little longer.”
Of course, the next season, that team won the Brier and the world championship and then qualified for the Olympics in 2018.
The Koe team was helped early in the season by a trip to China, where the curlers all got to know each other better and they ended up winning the inaugural World Cup event.