Everest Curling Preview

Matt Sussman
Aug 25, 2017 · 2 min read

The teams and schedule are here, and all of these games are going to be on ESPN3.

It’s an All-Star exhibition and doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, other than four curlers are going to get a nice wad of money ($50,000 Canadian each).

6:30 p.m. — Brad Jacobs (Lori Olson-Johns, Brett Gallant, Laine Peters) vs. Jennifer Jones (Marc Kennedy, Joanne Courtney, Tim March) — Hey, the battle of 2014 gold medallists! I figured anyone who took Courtney was going to have an advantage, and putting her with Jones is just a dangerous combination. Kennedy is an underrated third so I like that group a whole lot. Jacobs is such a dangerous skip but I’ve never seen him play with anyone else, so I’ll be curious if during the clutch moments he can communicate with the team just fine. A one-sheet rink is always a wild card but I’ll go with Jones to win tonight.

9:00 a.m. — Val Sweeting (Mark Nichols, Jocelyn Peterman, Ryan Harnden) vs. John Epping (Kaitlyn Lawes, Brent Laing, Rachelle Brown) — Pretty sure Nichols was going to be picked up by the Russian team when they were part of the event, then when they dropped out to [squints] illness of one person, Sweeting and Nichols together, goodness, I much enjoy that. I also haven’t seen a bunch of Epping, mostly because he never gets to the Brier, but Lawes and Laing really add some experience, and then Sweeting gets to play against Rachelle Brown, her own lead. Don’t still too many state secrets. Mostly a toss-up here, but I’ll take Epping to win.

1:00 p.m. — Kevin Koe (Emma Miskew, Patrick Janssen, Dawn McEwen) vs. Chelsea Carey (Ryan Fry, Dana Ferguson, Ben Hebert) — Another battle of teammates, with Koe and Hebert split apart. As plucky as the Carey team looks (Hebert is probably the size of the other three teammates combined), I’m not one to count out Koe in a game like this, especially with an expert vice and lead. I say Koe wins this one.

6:30 p.m. — Rachel Homan (Mat Camm, Jill Officer, Geoff Walker) vs. Brad Gushue (Cathy Overton, E.J. Harnden, Lisa Weagle) — Saving the best one for last? Both waltzed through their Canadian and world championships and both are opposing their regular team’s leads. Position by position I would say Homan’s team only has an advantage at second, and naturally I would say Gushue advances, but Homan has experience and success in beating male skips in the Elite 10 so I’ll say Homan advances even with the “worse” team on paper.

If all that holds true, then I’ll go with:

Semifinal 1: Jones over Epping
Semifinal 2: Koe over Homan
Final: Koe over Jones

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Matt Sussman

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twitter joke man and curling zealot

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