Howard Brothers Pick On Stoughton

12/03/2009 04:47

Martin racks up two more victories to keep pace for first

And on the fourth day, the curling gods sent Jeff Stoughton against the Howard brothers.

Bing, bang. Two black eyes.

In what turned out to be a cruel twist of scheduling on Tuesday in this 80th edition of the Tim Hortons Brier, the Winnipeg-based foursome lost to both brothers. It was the first and only time a team will have to play the two former Canadian men's curling champions on the same day, let alone in back-to-back draws.

Two-time Brier winner and 53-year-old New Brunswick skip Russ Howard threw the first punch at the Manitoba champions, a 5-4 decision on the afternoon shift, and then 2007 Brier champion Glenn Howard delivered one to the chin on the evening draw, guiding his Ontario hotshots to an 8-5 victory.

All that after little brother Glenn had taken care of big brother 7-2 on eight ends during the morning draw.

Glenn Howard needed the win over Stoughton to remain unbeaten through seven games and keep pace with defending champion Kevin Martin and his Alberta monsters from Edmonton and Calgary, who racked up two more convincing victories.

Needless to say, the gap continues to grow between the two 7-0 front-runners and the rest of the field. Brad Gushue of Newfoundland sits third at 5-2, then it's Stoughton and Russ Howard at 4-3. Two other teams, B.C.'s Sean Geall and Quebec's Jean-Michel Menard, have four losses.

Ontario gained control against Stoughton with a three-count on the fifth end to grab a 6-1 lead. He drew through an extremely slender port twice to make tap-backs of a buried Manitoba stone biting the button.

"That was definitely a big turning point," said Stoughton. "If my rock is eight inches higher or eight inches lower then he might have only gotten one. He still had to navigate a pretty nice port there... it seemed pretty easy because we did it three times, but it didn't look that easy."

Howard, nevertheless, had to draw against three with his last rock on the 10th end to seal the deal.

"A taste of the brothers. A tough day for Manitoba and a good day for Ontario and New Brunswick, I guess," said the winning skip, who lost the last five ends 4-2 and didn't feel like his team made a serious mistake.

More from the Edmonton Journal.

BRIER UPDATE:

Alberta’s Kevin Martin pounded Mike Jakubo of Northern Ontario 8-2 yesterday afternoon, before slamming Manitoba's Jeff Stoughton 8-2 in last night's draw to improve his Brier leading record to 9-0.

Martin plays Mark Dacey of Nova Scotia this afternoon, before finishing the round-robin part of the competition against Ontario's Glenn Howard tonight, in what should be just a ring-a-ding-dong-dandy of a contest. Catch all of the Brier action live at 8:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. local time on TSN and TSN-HD.

SWIVEL HIPS SAYS:

Personally, I don’t mind when anyone picks on Jeff Stoughton. It’s always nice to see his huge ego deflated a little bit.