Eight Ends: Einarson's Tour Challenge win completes full-circle moment

Eight Ends is your source for news, insight and analysis from the Grand Slam of Curling. This edition looks at takeaways from the HearingLife Tour Challenge in Charlottetown. We don’t have any spare reporters on our team.

FIRST END: Nine years ago, Kerri Einarson competed in the inaugural Tour Challenge event in Paradise, N.L., but not on the main ice pad. Oh no. Einarson was on the Tier 2 side looking to earn an invitation into the top flight.

Einarson won that event — her first-ever title on tour no less — and with authority as her team rolled through the Tier 2 undefeated to kickstart an incredible journey.

The Gimli, Man., skip is now a six-time Grand Slam of Curling title winner after capturing the HearingLife Tour Challenge Tier 1 women’s title Sunday with a 5-4 victory over Team Rachel Homan at the Bell Aliant Centre. As Team Christina Black became the latest Tier 2 women’s champion just a couple of sheets over, it provided a fitting full-circle moment for Einarson to reflect on the past nine years in the series.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” Einarson said. “I know when I was coming up into the Slams and having to win that Tier 2 just to get into them. Now here we are winning Tier 1. Our hard work has really paid off.”

SECOND END: The start of the season has been one of adversity for Team Einarson. Lead Briane Harris awaits a decision on her appeal for testing positive for a banned substance. Second Shannon Birchard has yet to play this fall as she recovers from a knee injury.

Alternate Krysten Karwacki is filling in at lead in the meantime while super spare Dawn McEwen, regarded as one of the greatest front-end players of all time, came on board at second for the HearingLife Tour Challenge.

“It’s great to have a win with them and they’ve been super spares for our team,” Einarson said. “We can’t thank them enough and truly appreciate all that they’ve done for our team.”

Even the coach needed a spare as Mike McEwen stepped in for Reid Carruthers during the final.

“It was fun. It was great having him back here,” said Einarson, who added with a laugh: “He might quit after his big win there.”

Don’t worry, Carruthers had to leave early and isn’t on the hot seat. McEwen’s stint was just a one-and-done appearance.

THIRD END: Scotland’s Bruce Mouat entered an exclusive club in January when he won the Co-op Canadian Open and completed a career Grand Slam. Mouat became just the seventh skip to win all four of the majors in the series joining Kevin Martin, Wayne Middaugh, Glenn Howard and Jeff Stoughton — a Mount Rushmore’s worth of curling greats right there — plus current skips Brad Gushue and Anna Hasselborg.

Mouat joined an even more exclusive club with his HearingLife Tour Challenge men’s title victory as he has now won all five active events in the series.

The seven-time Grand Slam champion Mouat completed the set after defeating the only other skip who had accomplished that feat, Gushue. Mouat was already up by two when he scored five points in the seventh end to ice the game.

“Thinking back to my early days in this sport, dreaming about trying to win one of these was something that seemed impossible,” Mouat said. “To finally get seven and to win every single one of them is a surreal moment. It’s something very special to all of us, all four of us.”

FOURTH END: Einarson could be the next member of both clubs as the Co-op Canadian Open is the last one for her to cross off the list. Guess what the next Grand Slam of Curling event is on the schedule?

The Co-op Canadian Open runs Nov. 5-10 at Silent Ice Center in Nisku, Alta.

“We’re really looking forward to the next event,” Einarson said. “It was a great confidence booster here going forward. We have another event before that one, some training in between there, so we’ll see what lineup we have for that one.”

FIFTH END: Homan entered the HearingLife Tour Challenge undefeated at 12-0 to start the season and only lost twice during the event to Italy’s Team Stefania Constantini and Einarson. Sound familiar? That’s how the Ottawa-based team began last year en route to a season for the ages, finishing with a 67-7 record and capturing Canadian and world championships plus two Grand Slam titles.

One major difference this year though is Homan picked up a few more wins in between those losses to reach the final as opposed to missing the playoffs last October.

Homan could be cooking something even more special this season, if that’s even possible.

It was also the seventh Grand Slam final between Homan and Einarson and we'll likely see more in the future. Homan holds a 4-3 advantage.

SIXTH END: Only one team defeated Einarson and Homan this week. Constantini beat both during the A Event of the triple knockout round and picked up a win over Team Tabitha Peterson to qualify for the playoffs undefeated at 3-0. Constantini’s run ended in the quarterfinals though with a 5-2 loss to Team Kaitlyn Lawes.

Constantini wasn’t the only A-qualifier to fall in the quarters as South Korea’s Team Eun-ji Gim and Calgary’s Team Brad Jacobs were also eliminated. Mouat was the only one of the four to win a playoff game, never mind win the championship.

That seems to track with the historical data for triple knockout events in the Grand Slam of Curling. Most men’s champions are A-qualifiers — Mouat became the eighth through 11 events — while most women’s champions are B-qualifiers — Einarson became the seventh through 11 events.

SEVENTH END: A familiar face was on the bench this week with Team Gushue. P.E.I.’s own Adam Casey, who played with the club from 2011-14, returned to the fold as their fifth man during the HearingLife Tour Challenge.

Gushue said Casey will be their fifth man for the Pan Continental Championships, Oct. 27 to Nov. 2 in Lacombe, Alta.

“He’s coming off of an arm injury, so he’s probably not the right guy to have jumping into the lineup because I don’t know how hard he’s going to be able to sweep but certainly by the Pan Continental, which is the whole idea in a month’s time, he’ll be fully recovered and ready to go,” Gushue said. “I know him well. I really enjoy Adam and like being around him. A good asset to have on the team and certainly at a P.E.I. Slam to have a P.E.I. boy on the bench doesn’t hurt.”

Gushue navigated through the choppy waters of the C-side and had a jam-packed Saturday with wins over Team Niklas Edin, Team Ross Whyte and Team Matt Dunstone to reach the final.

The 15-time Grand Slam champion Gushue pulled off one of the top shots of the week with a double raise takeout to score two (after a measure) in the eighth end to edge Whyte in the quarterfinals.

Gushue said they were “a little bit of smoke and mirrors” following the semifinals and needed an off-day from Mouat in the championship game. That didn’t come to be as Team Mouat shot 90 per cent (compared to Team Gushue at 78 per cent) with Mouat himself firing a game-high 96 per cent.

EIGHTH END: While Mike McEwen was in the winner’s circle coaching Team Einarson, his men’s team came up just a wee bit short after entering the event riding a 13-game winning streak and three title wins on tour. Team McEwen reached the semis but lost to eventual champion Mouat 6-2.

The Saskatoon squad made it to the semis last year in the HearingLife Tour Challenge … on the Tier 2 side that is. McEwen has found a good thing with Colton Flasch plus Kevin and Dan Marsh in short order as they look like a legit Grand Slam title threat.

McEwen began the season in August overseas at the Euro Super Series in Scotland. Even though they missed the playoffs, he said it was definitely a factor in his team's breakout in September.

"All I can say is we played more golf games than we did curling, so that kind of tells you how the curling went," McEwen said with a laugh. "We ran into some Euro teams that thumped us. We kind of got our legs late in the event, but it was too late. It just goes to show you how early some countries are starting and we were kind of behind the eight-ball. We knew that going in that it would be tough.

"It was a good trip, but to take something away from it, it sure lit a fire under us. In early September, we went and trained for three or four straight days in Edmonton before we played our second event. ... I think that experience in Europe actually led to us having a really great September even though we stumbled and fell on our faces."

EXTRA END: Team Black and Saskatoon’s Team Rylan Kleiter claimed the Tier 2 titles and received invitations to the WFG Masters, Jan. 14-19, at the Sleeman Centre in Guelph, Ont.

Black, whose Halifax-based team made it through the C-qualifiers, defeated Team Sayaka Yoshimura of Japan 7-3 in the women’s final and was buzzing after the title victory.

“Oh my gosh, I still kind of can’t believe that that just happened,” Black said. “We’ve had a wild ride the last, well, we’ve been here all week and came through the quarters. We really got lucky and stole three to win our quarterfinal game or we would never be here today. My girls, we played so great all week and really gelled as a team. It’s just so much fun. I can’t believe we won.”

Kleiter went through the men’s side undefeated but needed to draw for the 6-5 win over Norway’s Team Magnus Ramsfjell in an extra end.

“It’s awesome,” Kleiter said. “It’s great. It’s nice to see some of our hard work paying off there and just looking to keep building for the rest of the season.”

Kleiter could end up in the top tier sooner than the WFG Masters. His team moved up six spots to No. 16 with the victory.