Curling Scores: Final draw leaves Mike McEwen and Saskatchewan facing a crossroads
On a cold evening in St. John’s, the curling scores that mattered most unfolded under the bright arena lights: Team Saskatchewan, skipped by Mike McEwen, fell 6-3 to Matt Dunstone and then watched Braden Calvert’s victory elsewhere erase their path to the playoffs. The loss, played out in a tense 10th end and a gallery that erupted for Calvert, ended a week of close margins and left players and fans processing what comes next.
Curling Scores: The final draw that cost McEwen
For the first five ends of the match, McEwen, skip of Team Saskatchewan, and his teammates Colton Flasch (third), Kevin Marsh (second) and Dan Marsh (lead) controlled play. The scoreboard read 2-2 while McEwen was curling at 98 percent, but blanks and a late-game swing changed the narrative. In the sixth end McEwen was forced to take one; Dunstone, skip of Team Manitoba, flipped the hammer toward the later ends and grabbed a two in the eighth. McEwen blanked the ninth to retain hammer for the 10th, but with Dunstone’s final shot removing a potential in-off, McEwen’s final draw fell short and Flasch pushed the rock away in visible frustration.
The outcome left McEwen at 5-3, tied with Braden Calvert, skip of another Manitoba rink, but Calvert’s head-to-head win gave him the tiebreaker and the final playoff berth from Pool B. Kevin Koe finished as a top seed, while Dunstone secured a high seed as well. McEwen had the simple math in front of him: win and clinch; lose and rely on events elsewhere. When Calvert closed his game with an 8-4 result, the arena reaction made the stakes clear and McEwen’s week was done.
Saskatchewan’s double exit and what it reveals
Both Saskatchewan skips — Mike McEwen and Kelly Knapp — ended their weeks outside the playoff field. Knapp’s Regina-based rink, with third Brennen Jones, second Dustin Kidby and lead Mat Ring, closed after a 9-4 loss to Jayden King and a 3-5 finish in Pool A. McEwen’s Saskatoon-based team, formed in 2024 and noted for strong 7-1 round-robin records in prior years, finished 5-3 this time. McEwen was battling a head cold but felt well enough to compete throughout the round robin.
The results raised immediate questions about team futures. Observers noted the age and experience gap within McEwen’s group — McEwen is 45 while his teammates are younger talents — and the combination of close losses and missed opportunities has left the squad at a crossroads. Last year the team reached the Page playoff qualifier after a silver-medal finish the year before; this exit is sharper because the margin for advancement was so slim.
A breakout debut and the human stakes
Amid Saskatchewan’s disappointment, a different story unfolded: Ontario’s Jayden King, skip of Team Ontario, reached the playoffs in his Brier debut, finishing 5-3 with teammates Dylan Niepage, Owen Henry and Victor Pietrangelo. King became the first Black skip in Brier history, and his week featured several game-saving shots that drew notice from veteran observers. The roar that greeted Calvert’s clincher and the celebrations that followed for King underscore how singular moments in curling scores can reshape careers and expectations.
The human contours of these outcomes are clear. For McEwen and his teammates — Colton Flasch (third), Kevin Marsh (second) and Dan Marsh (lead) — the exit is both a sporting setback and a prompt for decisions about the future of the rink. For Knapp and his crew, it’s a reset after representing their province with mixed results. For King and Calvert, the returns are momentum and opportunity. The arena lights dim, stones are wiped down, and the players head home with numbers on the ledger but questions in the locker room: who stays together, who rebuilds, and how will last-end moments in those curling scores be answered next season?
