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PLAYOFF PICTURE STILL FUZZY

B.C.’s Corey Chester sweeps for Taylor Reese-Hansen as Brent Laing looks on. (Photo – Rob Blanchard/Curling Canada)

SOME PLAYOFF BERTHS BOOKED AT MIXED DOUBLES; MANY STILL IN DOUBT 

When the sun rose over Fredericton, New Brunswick on Wednesday morning, all but a few of the 32 teams playing the Canadian Mixed Doubles Championship still had a chance to reach the playoff round, beginning Thursday. 

Three draws later, with one more left to play, the situation started to gain some clarity, although several teams are still on the metaphorical bubble; exploring permutations of wins and losses and comparing the latest Last Shot Draw scores. 

Over the course of the day, however, some things did become clear. With one draw left to play, three of the pool winners had been confirmed. 

Laura Walker and Kirk Muyres won their morning game, improving their record to 6-0. This was good enough to clinch the top seed in the A Pool. With an early win over Newfoundland and Labrador’s Jessica Wiseman and Greg Smith, British Columbia champs Taylor Reese-Hansen and Corey Chester clinched the C Pool, even before their afternoon 5-4 win over Jennifer Jones and Brent Laing. 

“I felt a bit of jitters before our game this morning, knowing what was on the line,” said Taylor Reese-Hansen (Kamloops, B.C.).  “Going into this one [vs. Jones/Laing], we were a bit more relaxed, and decided we could take a few chances.” 

One such chance was a long runback in the sixth end, which was executed perfectly by Reese-Hansen, leading to a critical steal of one. 

“The game was back and forth the whole way,” said Reese-Hansen. “When it came to that runback, we decided it was pretty low-risk and we knew that we could take it on, considering we’d already clinched the playoff spot. We were willing to take a few risks out there tonight, and it paid off.” 

“We’re starting to embrace the ice,” said her teammate Chester. “We had some close, pretty scrappy, games earlier in the week at the arena. Then we went to the curling club and played two of our best games of the season. We wanted to carry some of that momentum back to the arena. It turned out to be great timing.” 

Kadriana and Colton Lott (Gimli, Man.) ran the table with a perfect 7-0 record to claim the D Pool, which leaves only the B Pool yet to be decided. With four teams tied at the top with 4-2 records, the last draw has all sorts of implications. 

Three teams could all finish at 5-2, and if a head-to-head tiebreaker can’t solve it, the Last Shot Draw scores will. Some teams will inevitably fall to 4-3, which will throw them into a log jam with as many as ten other teams.  

Some will qualify for the 5th through 12th positions based on Last Shot Draw, and some will head home empty-handed. The Pool winners will have a direct bye to the quarterfinals, while the remaining eight playoff teams will face off for a quarterfinal berth. 

Following the final draw, top seeds from each pool will be slotted into the top four spots. The next eight teams based on record and LSD will fill out the play-in draw. 

Playoffs begin Thursday at 1:00 pm Atlantic Time, with quarterfinals taking place at 7:00 pm AT. 

Streaming is available at http://plus.curling.ca while scores can be found at http://curling.ca/scoreboard.