It seemed like at the SaskTel Tankard earlier this year, Matt Dunstone’s team couldn’t do anything but win as he threw final stones for the Steve Laycock rink.
Dunstone (1-4) didn’t have that kind of good luck at the Home Hardware Canada Cup until Friday morning’s draw, when he defeated Reid Carruthers (0-5) 7-3.
“It was nice to go out and get that first one,” Dunstone said. “You don’t want to go out and get skunked so it was nice to come out and we definitely played our best game today.”
As the only fully Saskatchewan-based rink in either the men’s or women’s divisions, Dunstone has been a crowd favourite and that crowd – supplemented by classrooms from Estevan and area – erupted into a huge cheer when he and Carruthers’ rinks shook hands at the end of the eighth end.
“It was nice and loud because they’ve been holding it in for two days,” he laughed. “When you’re playing in front of a hometown, you love to hear that.”
This morning, Dunstone said he and his team dialled in their big weight shots.
“We made a lot more of those. Throughout the week we’ve been kind of wrong-siding big weight shots and today we kind of figured out how to throw those on this ice.”
Dunstone has one more match before the end of his Canada Cup, an evening match against John Epping (2-2).
“We have some confidence going into the next one,” Dunstone said, “That’s the big thing, just get that first one…
“If we got it in that first game the week might have looked a little bit different but I think we’ll have a lot of confidence going into the game.”
Kevin Koe (4-1) also made quick work of his opponent Friday morning with a 10-3 win over Brendan Bottcher (3-2). He scored four in the third and four in the fifth end, both with the hammer, as he seemed to be a man on a mission.
“They’re one of the best teams in the world but we got a lot of misses out of them, uncharacteristically,” said Koe. “We played good, so it was a good win for us.”
With a 4-1 record, he is tied in wins with Brad Jacobs (4-0), who has two more matches left to Koe’s one. Ultimately, 4-1 is a good place to be at this stage of the Canada Cup.
“We got off to a rough start and didn’t play well that first day but in a field like this you can lose to anybody,” Koe said. “I’m pretty happy and hopefully we’ve got another one in us tonight.”
In the other matches from the morning draw, Kerri Einarson (4-1) defeated Casey Scheidegger (3-2) 8-5, Rachel Homan (3-2) defeated Darcy Robertson (1-4) 7-6 and Jennifer Jones (4-1) defeated Alli Flaxey (1-4) 7-4.
This afternoon’s draw will have Brad Gushue against Carruthers, Chelsea Carey against Homan, Jones against Scheidegger, Epping against Jacobs and Laura Walker (1-3) against Einarson.
