Skip to content

Favourites on track at Tim Hortons Brier

LONDON, Ont. — With Alberta on the verge of a losing streak at the Tim Hortons Brier, team lead Ben Hebert couldn’t contain his frustration.

LONDON, Ont. — With Alberta on the verge of a losing streak at the Tim Hortons Brier, team lead Ben Hebert couldn’t contain his frustration.

His team was coming off a rare loss the night before and did not look sharp early Tuesday morning. Nova Scotia scored three in the opening end and skip Shawn Adams added two more in the fifth. That’s when an upset Hebert kicked the padded rock cushion at the end of the sheet before hurling his water bottle to the ground.

Team third John Morris looked discouraged. Team second Marc Kennedy’s toothy grin had disappeared.

Enter veteran skip Kevin Martin. The Olympic champion told his team in no uncertain terms what needed to be done and Alberta responded with a comeback 9-7 victory.

Martin wouldn’t reveal what was said, but he got the result he was looking for.

“There’s no sense putting sugar on it,” Martin said. “I might as well say exactly what I’m thinking and man, the last half we had to be close to 100 (per cent shooting percentage).”

Martin scored three with a double takeout in the ninth end to seal the victory.

“We hung in there,” he said. “I think that’s the moral of that game.

“We got down early and it wasn’t really anyone’s fault. Then just some bad breaks and we came back strong.”

After the fifth end, Hebert cooled down for a few minutes in the locker-room area at the John Labatts Centre before returning to the ice. Alberta is an experienced rink and it showed in the second half.

“We’ve been here before,” Hebert said. “It’s frustrating when you’re playing the best teams in the world and you’re supposed to be one of the best teams in the world and you’re not playing like it for the first few ends.

“But you know what, we played really good for the last four ends.”

Alberta followed the victory with a solid 7-5 win over Quebec’s Francois Gagne to remain in sole possession of second place at 6-1. Martin is chasing Manitoba skip Jeff Stoughton, who improved to 6-0 after a 10-4 win over Jamie Koe of the Northwest Territories/Yukon.

Stoughton, a two-time Brier winner, was down 3-1 early in his game before turning things around.

“The way the week is going we just didn’t hang the heads, we just kept on rolling,” Stoughton said. “We made them make some really tough shots and they couldn’t pull it out.

“So it worked out great.”

Ontario’s Glenn Howard was alone in third at 5-1 after a 6-1 victory over Newfoundland and Labrador’s Brad Gushue, who fell to 4-2.

“Another win under the belt,” Howard said. “It gets us up to five and it feels good. We’ve got the train on the tracks and it’s going in the right direction.”

Gushue, who ended Martin’s 30-game Brier winning streak on Monday night, said it was a disappointing effort.

“It was just poor execution, poor throws, poor communication out there,” Gushue said. “There was a lot of stuff that went wrong and that’s the only reason we lost the game.

“I thought our game plan was the right one, we just didn’t execute it very well.”

Howard was scheduled to play Stoughton on Tuesday night.

Saskatchewan’s Steve Laycock is still in the mix at 3-3 after posting a 6-4 victory over Jim Cotter of British Columbia. Adams rebounded from his morning loss to Martin with a 10-5 victory over Brad Jacobs of Northern Ontario to leave both rinks at 3-4.

Northwest Territories/Yukon was tied with New Brunswick at 2-4, Quebec was 2-5 while B.C. and Prince Edward Island were tied for last place at 1-5.

Round-robin play continues through Thursday night. The top four teams will qualify for the playoffs.

A bronze medal game has been added to the playoff schedule this year. It will be played Sunday afternoon before the championship game that evening.

Notes: Stoughton won the world title in 1996 and added his second national title in 1999. Manitoba hasn’t won the Brier since. ... London last hosted the Brier in 1974. Alberta’s Hec Gervais was victorious that year at the London Gardens. ... Northern Ontario skip Brad Jacobs is the youngest skip in the field at 25. ... This is the 82nd edition of the Canadian men’s curling championship. The winner will represent Canada at the Ford world men’s curling championship next month in Regina.