Trevor Bonot's Northern Ontario rink continued its impressive run at the Canadian men's curling championship with a 10-6 win over Ontario's Scott Howard in Tuesday's early draw.
Howard scored two in the eighth end to cut Bonot's lead to 7-6, but the skip out of Thunder Bay responded with three in the ninth and prompted Howard to concede.
Bonot, coming off an upset of top-ranked Brendan Bottcher on Monday, improved to 4-1 and took control of first place in Pool A after Manitoba's Reid Carruthers was dealt his first loss at the Montana's Brier.
British Columbia's Catlin Schneider (3-2) scored one in the 10th in a 9-8 win over Carruthers (3-1).
In other Draw 10 scores, Manitoba's Matt Dunstone improved to 3-1 with a 7-6 win over New Brunswick's James Grattan (0-4). Dunstone and Carruthers were in a three-way tie for second with Alberta's Bottcher, who didn't play in the morning.
Bottcher and Dunstone were set to face off in Wednesday's late draw.
Newfoundland and Labrador's Andrew Symonds (1-4) picked up his first win at the Brier with a 6-5 extra-end victory over Yukon's Thomas Scoffin (1-3). The game was interrupted by a leak in the Brandt Centre over their ice sheet.
A Pool B draw was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon followed by another Pool A draw in the evening.
The top three teams in each pool of nine Thursday advance to Friday's six-team playoff round, from which Saturday's four Page playoff teams emerge.
Tiebreaker games have been eliminated from the format. Head-to-head results followed by cumulative scores in the draw-the-button that precedes each game is the tiebreaking formula.
Three losses is considered the playoff danger zone, although a team made it into the Canadian women's championship with four losses.
Sunday's winner will represent Canada at the world championship March 30 to April 7 in Schaffhausen, Switzerland and return to the 2025 Montana's Brier in Kelowna, B.C., as defending champion.
The victor also gains an Olympic trials berth in 2025 pending a top-six result at the world championship.
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