McEwen out, Gushue or Dunstone for the final

[With files from Curling Canada]

And just like that, two misses in playoff games changed the Brier picture heading into Saturday.

For Mike McEwen, the 2024 Brier finalist, it was fatal.

For Brad Jacobs, he’s now on a longer road to a hopeful final.

Team McEwen—with Colton Flasch and the Marsh twins, Kevin and Dan—saw a hit for three points in the sixth end of their Page playoff qualifier against Manitoba’s Reid Carruthers and went for it. The gamble failed to pay off as Carruthers inexplicably stole two points.

It was more than pivotal—it marked a huge five-point swing, and McEwen never recovered. Carruthers won 6-4.

McEwen had earlier lost to Winnipeg’s Matt Dunstone, marking three straight losses to end the Saskatchewan team’s 2025 Brier run at Kelowna’s Prospera Place.

“Monumental error in reading angles,” conceded McEwen. “Yeah, that’s the game. We should have just drawn for two; I’m not even sure it was there for three. So that was it.

“We controlled the game, we outplayed them the entire game, but we made a catastrophic error.”

Carruthers, who needed help just to make the playoffs, is now into Saturday’s Page 3 vs. 4 playoff against Jacobs.

“I don’t know; It almost feels like divine intervention, something wild’s going on,” said Carruthers.

“But we’re not going to question it. We’re just going to roll with it.”

Jacobs, who earlier Friday eliminated Nova Scotia’s Owen Purcell, faced his own risk versus reward shot against defending champion Brad Gushue in a first-round playoff tilt.

That came in the seventh end, and the 2014 Olympic champion missed an in-off to score multiple points.

Gushue’s team then turned up the heat and won it by a 7-4 final count.

It marked Jacobs’ first loss of the tournament.

“Brad Gushue just proved why he’s Brad Gushue,” said Jacobs. “I think he probably curled 100 per cent. I don’t think he missed a shot, and their whole team played really well.

“We got outplayed, and especially late in the game, which is too bad. But you know what? Chins up, we’re not out of the Brier yet.”

It served as a solid bounce-back game for Gushue, Mark Nichols, Brendan Bottcher and Geoff Walker, who lost their final round-robin game of the week to Dunstone on Thursday.

“Yeah, it was patience, starting out the game without hammer against that team that’s playing really well this week,” said Gushue.

“We knew we just had to be patient and limit the mistakes. It’s hard to be perfect, but if we could flip the hammer in six, seven or eight, that was kind of the situation we knew we were going to be in. 

“I really expected it to be tied up coming home, or one down with coming home.”

This Brier marks the first time since the inaugural Olympic run of 2006 that Nichols has swept for Gushue’s skip stones, with another teammate—in this case Bottcher—calling line in the house.

The squad first made the change during an ungainly 0-4 won/loss mark at the last Grand Slam tournament in January.

Gushue’s Team Canada and Dunstone will clash in the Page 1 vs. 2 game Saturday at 6:30 p.m. (all times Pacific), with the winner moving to Sunday’s championship final.

The loser drops to Sunday morning’s semifinal against the winner of the Page 3 vs. 4 playoff game (12:30 p.m. Saturday).