By Jonathan Brazeau
NISKU, Alta. — John Epping jokingly said you can blame him for one of the new rules being tested this week at the CO-OP Tour Challenge.
Teams are allowed to blank only one end per game in the second Grand Slam of Curling event of the season. If a team blanks a second time, they will lose the hammer.
The rule is part of several changes implemented by The Curling Group, which owns and operates the series, to increase offence and speed up the pace of play.
Epping blanked four times — back-to-back in the first and second ends, then again in the fifth and sixth — during his quarterfinal matchup against Bruce Mouat in the AMJ Masters last month in London, Ont.
Although it's a small sample size, there were only six blanks total across the 16 games played on the opening day — and Epping wasn't one of them. Compare that to the AMJ Masters, where there were 16 blanks during the first day of that event alone.
"Even though you didn’t see a blank, we were thinking about it," said Epping, who began play with a 6-4 victory over Korey Dropkin. "One thing I’ve always said and I’ll say it again now is what I love about the Slams is they tend to try new things and new rules, and they’re very innovative with the game.
"I like this rule. I’m not really worried about it. Maybe we were part of the reason. I know the last quarterfinal we played in London, I think we had four or five blank ends."
Epping added with a laugh, "It is all my fault. That’s fine. I’ll take the blame, but I love the rule and love to try something new."
Consider Niklas Edin a fan, as he doesn't like blanks to begin with.
“It just makes for boring curling, in my opinion,” he said. “I like aggressive curling, but then, one blank, I think, makes sense because it’s such a tactical move. It makes all teams think about their decisions a little more. If you had no blanks, it would just be all in go for two or three, so I think it adds some excitement still, and you have to make good decisions the whole way.”
Matt Dunstone didn’t have a positive first impression during his game against Rylan Kleiter.
“My gut tells me we’re going to leave this week saying that this is not the answer, just based on how that went,” Dunstone said. “Again, don’t know it too much, but based on how some of those ends were played, my gut tells me that this is not the answer, but fun to try.”
There were no blanks for Kerri Einarson in her game against Christina Black, although that's par for the course with her team.
"I actually don’t try to think about it too much because I know in our games we don’t really blank a whole lot, so it doesn’t really cross my mind," Einarson said. "But maybe if I have that opportunity, I’ll take one here and save my blank for a later end. I just try not to think about it too much."
EYES ON THE PRIZE
This season is all about gearing up for the Winter Olympics in February.
Edin, who will look to defend the gold in Milan-Cortina, acknowledged that his Swedish squad has played OK so far to start the season, but hasn't gotten the results he's been looking for.
“We’re always slow starters,” said Edin, who is No. 12 on the year-to-date rankings. “I guess in this case, too, we know the big goal is in February. We had hoped to (have) better results, but kind of expected to be slow starters as always.”
Edin said it felt good to pick up a 6-4 victory over McEwen to open the tournament on the right foot.
“I think we need to start amping it up for our confidence, too," he added. "We need some wins just to not feel that we’re behind some of the other teams.”
It was deuces wild until the fourth end when McEwen hit and rolled just far enough on his first skip stone that allowed Edin to force the Saskatoon team to a single point. That gave Edin a 4-3 lead and control of the match heading into the break.
“It was kind of a few late mistakes from both teams to get those deuces, then when we could hold them to one in the fourth, that was definitely key and kind of could afford to do a little bit of everything,” Edin said. “We could have blanked or scored one or go for two, so we felt confident after that fourth end, one up with (the hammer). We felt like it’s our game if we don’t miss anything big here.”
With McEwen holding the hammer coming home, trailing by two, Edin pulled off a hard double takeout to run him out of rocks.
DUNSTONE IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT
Top of the table, to you. Dunstone entered the CO-OP Tour Challenge sitting first in the year-to-date rankings, thanks to back-to-back title wins.
His Winnipeg-based club kicked off the Grand Slam of Curling season by capturing the AMJ Masters and followed that up with a title victory at the PointsBet Invitational in Calgary.
Dunstone maintained the pace with an 8-3 win over Kleiter’s Saskatoon squad during Tuesday’s opening draw.
“You want to keep the momentum going,” Dunstone said. “I think it’s easy to sit back and think things are going to come easy, but again, I’ve talked about it a couple times, I just think our schedule is set up so nicely where it’s not even giving us time to sit back. We know we’re just week off, get back into it, week off, get back into it again."
Tied 1-1, Dunstone broke the game open with a three-ender in the fourth and a steal of two in the fifth to hold a five-point advantage. Kleiter came back with a deuce in the sixth, but Dunstone matched right back with a pair in the seventh to ice the game.
“It’s a good start," Dunstone added. "The ice took a little bit of time to get a handle on it, but we made some shots down the stretch and controlled the whole game.”
TOP SHOTS OF THE DAY
Robin Brydone with quite possibly the shot of the week ... when the week just started.
Watch Team Whyte's third deliver a long double raise double takeout from downtown Nisku.
Just Team Homan doing Team Homan things.
Down to the last rock against Xenia Schwaller and with the game tied, skip Rachel Homan and sweeper Emma Miskew came through in the clutch.
The 18-time Grand Slam champ Homan was able to pull off a runback that glanced off her other stone — and managed to avoid crashing out — to remove Schwaller’s shot rock and score two points for the 7-5 win.
UP NEXT
The CO-OP Tour Challenge resumes Wednesday with Draw 5 at 8:30 a.m. local time (10:30 a.m. ET) at the Silent Ice Center.
Tickets are available at GSOCtickets.com, with live streaming for all games at rockchannel.com.
Broadcast coverage on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ begins Thursday at 2 p.m. ET / Noon MT.
