Northern Ontario finishes Brier at 3-8

NEWS RELEASE

CANADIAN CURLING ASSOCIATION

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Saskatchewan reaches Page one-two game Saskatchewan's Pat Simmons has nailed down a berth in Friday's Page playoff one-two game with Alberta's Kevin Martin at the Tim Hortons Brier Canadian men's curling championship in Winnipeg.

Simmons and his Davidson Curling Club team — third Jeff Sharp, second Gerry Adam and lead Steve Laycock — defeated Manitoba's Kerry Burtnyk 8-2 Thursday night in the final round-robin draw at the MTS Centre.

Saskatchewan stole four in the fifth end when Burtnyk's final rock wrecked on a guard.

The win sets up an Alberta-Saskatchewan showdown at 8 p.m. (all times Eastern) on Friday on TSN. The winner will advance directly to Sunday's 6:30 p.m. championship game on CBC.

"That's everyone's goal, I think, or should be, obviously," said Simmons. "That was our goal coming into today. We wanted to play well and carry some momentum into tomorrow, which we did tonight. All is good."

The loss eliminated Manitoba from playoff contention. Burtnyk, a two-time Brier champ, finished with a 6-5 round-robin record, with all five losses coming to the teams that finished above him in the standings

Saskatchewan's victory dropped defending Brier and world champion Glenn Howard of Ontario into the Page playoff three-four game Friday at 3 p.m., on TSN. Ontario finished the round-robin with an 8-6 triumph over Brian Rafuse of Nova Scotia to finish with the same 9-2 record as Saskatchewan, but Saskatchewan earns second place by virtue of its round-robin win in their head-to-head game. Nova Scotia finished with a 3-8 record.

Ontario will play the winner of Friday morning's fourth-place tiebreaker between Newfoundland/Labrador's Brad Gushue and B.C.'s Bob Ursel, who both finished their round-robin schedule on Thursday afternoon with 7-4 records. The tiebreaker is scheduled for Friday at 10:30 a.m., and will be televised by TSN.

The winner of the Page three-four game advances to Saturday's semifinal at 2:30 p.m. on CBC, against the loser of the Page one-two game.

In other draw 17 play, Alberta's Kevin Martin completed a perfect 11-0 round-robin by beating Chad Cowan of the Yukon/Northwest Territories 7-4. The last unbeaten team in round-robin play was Alberta's Randy Ferbey in 2003 at Halifax. The Territories finished with a 2-9 record.

Also, Quebec's Jean-Michel Menard finished on a winning note, turning back Eric Harnden of Northern Ontario 9-8 in a game that took 12 ends because Menard rolled out on his last shot in the first extra end. Quebec finished with a 4-7 record, while Northern Ontario heads home with a 3-8 record. ***********************************************************