The Viterra Championship version of the tagline “everyone wants to beat the champion” ALMOST came true doubly Friday afternoon at the 2024 Manitoba Men’s Curling Championship in Stonewall.
In this instance replace ‘champion’ with ‘top seed’ and it was #1 seed Team Carruthers, skipped by Olympic gold medalist Brad Jacobs, who almost got beat. It was 2023 Saskatchewan junior champion Logan Ede, skipping a young Stonewall team, who pushed the top seed to the limit. Tied 2-2 coming home, the Ede foursome was laying three when Jacobs made his last stone hit for the 3-2 win.
At the same time, second seed Ryan Wiebe was pushed past ten ends by Justin Reynolds and his team from Winnipeg Beach. Tied 6-6, Wiebe had last shot on the extra end and, like Jacobs, had a hit to win 7-6.
On the “A” Side of the preliminary double knock-out round, the top seeds joined six other winners to set up the 8:30AM Friday draw, when the first four Qualifiers will be identified for the next Playoff Round.
The teams which have won their first two games, and their Friday morning match-ups are:
#1 Team Carruthers (Granite) vs #7 Riley Smith (Charleswood)
#2 Ryan Wiebe (Fort Rouge) vs Justin Richter (Beausejour)
#3 Braden Calvert (Fort Rouge) vs Greg Todoruk (Dauphin)
#4 Jordon McDonald (Assiniboine Memorial) vs #5 Brett Walter (Assiniboine Memorial)
Meanwhile, the original 32-team has has been cut to sixteen. On the “B” Side of the draw, #6 Steve Irwin (Brandon) has won a pair of games after a first round loss but #8 seed Sean Grassie (Deer Lodge) has been eliminated. The “B” Side survivors are Irwin, Cale Dunbar (Brandon), Logan Ede (Stonewall), Hayden Forrester (Fort Rouge), Jace Freeman (Virden), Justin Reynolds (Winnipeg Beach), Jeff Stewart (Gladstone), and Devon Wiebe (Charleswood).
