Alberta’s Kevin Koe has won 10 consecutive games at the Montana’s Brier. One more and he’ll be the Canadian men's curling champion for a fifth time.

Koe continued his unbelievable undefeated run at the Mary Brown’s Centre in St. John's, N.L., with a 9-7 extra-end victory over Manitoba’s Matt Dunstone in Saturday’s Page 1-2 playoff game to clinch a spot in the final.

Dunstone, who also lost to Koe in pool play, has a second chance to reach Sunday's championship game, dropping into the semifinal against Canada’s Brad Jacobs and a rematch of last year’s final.

Koe got off on the wrong foot, giving up a steal to start, and only his third steal of the week, but the four-time Brier champ regrouped with a huge second end to score three and never trailed again.

Dunstone, a two-time Brier silver medallist, scored two in the third end to tie it but was denied a third point after a close measure.

After the teams alternated singles in the fifth and seventh ends, Dunstone looked to have a textbook finish set up: score two in the eighth, force Koe in the ninth, then score another pair for the win in the 10th.

Steps one and two went as planned, but the last part required Dunstone to make a run double to score his decisive deuce. His raised rock didn’t roll far enough to make contact with Koe’s second stone, resulting in a tying single point that pushed the game into an extra end.

The odds of stealing in an extra aren't favourable, especially when Koe is as clinical as he was on his first skip stone, nailing a run double of his own to sit two. Koe didn’t need to throw his last as Dunstone’s draw for a potential stolen point was off the target.

Team Dunstone (91 per cent) outshot Team Koe (82 per cent), but the Calgary-based club made the ones that counted.

You can never count out the 51-year-old Koe, who missed the playoffs in the past two Briers but now looks as dialed in as ever.

One more win, but it's the only win that matters.

JACOBS ON TRACK

Two down, two to go. Jacobs won a second straight elimination game, defeating Newfoundland and Labrador’s Brad Gushue 7-5 earlier Saturday in the Page 3-4 playoff game. That signalled the end of Gushue's career in men's curling as the legendary skip steps back from the game.

Only one team has won four consecutive elimination games en route to the tankard: Jacobs, last year.

The difficulty level on the road to the tankard only ramps up, facing Dunstone in a Brier final rematch in the semi and, should his team win that, undefeated Koe, who was victorious 7-4 over Jacobs when they met in the Page 1-2 qualifier Friday afternoon to set up this whole gauntlet run scenario.

BATTLE OF THE BRADS

So who was the overall winner in the Battle of the Brads? It’s complicated.

We’ll use CurlingZone’s head-to-head stats as a basis, which lists Gushue leading 34-33. Adding the Page 3-4 result plus two other games missing from this season (Jacobs won during the HearingLife Canadian Open preliminary round and Gushue was victorious this week in pool play) brings it to an even 35-35 split.

But wait, flashback to 2023-24 when Jacobs was playing with Reid Carruthers and took over as skip mid-season. A few of those events are listed under Carruthers in CurlingZone’s stats, in which case, add two more wins for Jacobs (2024 Astec Safety Challenge quarterfinals and Canadian Open preliminary round) and one for Gushue (2024 Montana’s Brier pool play). That tips the scale 37-36 in favour of Jacobs.

Hold on, we’re not done yet.

One of the results listed is from the 2017 Everest Curling Challenge, a one-off exhibition event featuring mixed teams. Gushue played with Cathy Overton-Clapham, E.J. Harnden and Lisa Weagle and won 9-0 over Jacobs, who had Lori Olson-Johns, Brett Gallant and Laine Peters. Your mileage may vary on whether or not that one should count, in which case it’s 37-35 for Jacobs.

Lead photo: Curling Canada/Andrew Klaver