STEINBACH, Man. — It might be hard to believe that Matt Dunstone has been playing in the Grand Slam of Curling for a decade. It might be even harder to believe that the Crown Royal Players' Championship is the first time the Winnipeg skip is playing in his backyard in the series.
Dunstone remembers "fanboying" it up during the last two times the series rolled through Manitoba for the 2018 Elite 10 in Winnipeg and the 2014 Masters in Selkirk.
Now, Dunstone finally gets to experience what it's actually like playing in a Grand Slam in front of family, friends and fans this week at the Southeast Event Centre.
"I'm pretty happy to be playing in Manitoba for sure," said Dunstone, who opened with a thrilling 6-5 shootout victory over Mike McEwen on Tuesday night.
"Great crowd tonight. This facility is incredible. One of the nicest ones we've been to, for sure, and I hear nothing but good things with the crowd as the week goes on, so I'm excited," he added. "I hope we can carry this momentum moving forward, go out and get on a little bit of a streak and try and make playoffs, make a run. But mission accomplished game one, and hopefully we carry it forward."
The victory was a much-needed one for Dunstone to start the new year on a positive note after ending 2025 on a downer. Dunstone's Olympic dream was dashed with a runner-up result at the Montana's Canadian Curling Trials in late November, and his team went winless through last month's HearingLife Canadian Open in Saskatoon, heading into the Christmas break.
It was an uncharacteristic event for Dunstone, who had reached three consecutive Grand Slam finals to begin the season, starting with a title victory at the AMJ Masters in September. Tuesday's win helped Dunstone get "the monkey off our back."
"I think it'll allow us to play a little bit more free. That wasn't a losing streak we're used to having at the Slams this year anyway, right? It feels good to start off (with a win)," Dunstone said.
"We needed the reset. I think we can all admit we didn't have enough time between the trials and Saskatoon. We weren't ourselves; we weren't there. We were there physically, just kind of going through the motions, getting ready for Christmas, right? We had that break. Now it's kind of the full reset is on as we look towards the Brier here."
It was a tight, back-and-forth battle between Dunstone and McEwen, with the crowd cheering on both sides. Although McEwen's team is based in Saskatoon, you might as well call them Team Saskatoba this week, as both the skip and super spare B.J. Neufeld hail from Winnipeg.
McEwen was forced to a single in the second end to open the scoring, but a steal in the third gave him a 2-0 lead. After McEwen made a nice angle tap to lie buried, Dunstone attempted a multiple raise but left the shot rock untouched.
Dunstone bounced back with a deuce in the fourth to tie it 2-2 heading into the break.
McEwen was limited to a single in the fifth, and Dunstone grabbed the lead for the first time in the sixth with a hit and stick through the port for another deuce to make it 4-3.
McEwen matched with a tap for two points in the seventh to retake the lead, and Dunstone drew for just a single in the eighth to force the shootout.
Although McEwen grabbed a piece of the button, it wasn't enough as the man they call the sheriff drew his shooter closer to the pinhole.
MCEWEN, NEUFELD REUNION
Playing close to home has suited McEwen in the past. While Dunstone was a spectator at the aforementioned 2018 Elite 10, McEwen and Neufeld were a tour de force on the ice, capturing their seventh Grand Slam title together.
A change of scenery for the Crown Royal Players’ Championship might be good for McEwen, who was a finalist in the event three times during the years it was stationed in Toronto.
"It's kind of the one major that escaped the team that B.J. and I had together 11 years," McEwen said. "We lost three Players' Championship finals, all of them on the last rock, from what I can remember."
This week's reunion came about as second Kevin Marsh is staying at home in Saskatoon to be with his wife, who is expecting a baby.
McEwen made the call to Neufeld, who also has ties on the team with third Colton Flasch, as they played for a couple of seasons with skip Kevin Koe.
"As soon as we got the news that Kevin wasn't going to be here this week, it was like a no-brainer. First ask, first pick," McEwen said. "A lot of excitement, honestly. I mean, Colton and B.J. won a Canadian championship together. B.J. and I won seven Grand Slams, and the last Grand Slam in Manitoba eight years ago. There's immediately just a lot of excitement and, honestly, like a pretty good amount of confidence that this would work for basically the toughest Slam of the year."
The temporary change has led to a shuffle, with Neufeld throwing third and Flasch moving to second. McEwen explained that Flasch wasn’t demoted and the lineup shift was actually his idea.
“He was like, look, I played second under B.J. I know how to sweep his rocks,” McEwen said. "He's like, this makes sense for this event. I want to play second. Let's put B.J. at third. That's his normal position. That's where he's comfortable at. He's a career great third. Why would we put him at second?
“Flasch is more probably dynamic in the positions he's played, right? Skip, third, second. So, Flasch was the driver on that. He's like, no, I should play second, that's our best lineup with the squad.”
McEwen and Neufeld have also been reminiscing as they played in a provincial final in town many years ago, and the skip is thoroughly impressed with the new arena.
“I think this was our very first provincial final that we ever played. Now, that was the old arena, but if we're going way back, I think that was the first time we matched up against (Jeff) Stoughton in a final,” McEwen said. “I'm not even going to say what year that was, but it’s pretty cool to be playing in Steinbach, and wow, what a venue. Holy smokes, this is going to be awesome. As soon as I heard it was going to be here, I knew it was going to be good."
He added: "I thought the venue was going to be great, but even when we pulled up, I was like, whoa. … This is cool, very cool.”
DAY 1 HIGHLIGHTS
• It was a day of comebacks and shootouts galore, starting with Kyle Waddell's Scottish squad as they came from behind to defeat Italy’s Team Joël Retornaz 8-7 in a shootout. Trailing by two in the eighth end, Waddell pulled off a nifty double takeout to score the tying deuce and force the draw-to-the-button decider. Retornaz bit the button with his shot; However, Waddell drew as close to the pinhole as he could without actually covering it.
• Thievery was key for Sweden's Anna Hasselborg in her 7-3 victory against Japan's Satsuki Fujisawa. Hasselborg stole back-to-back points to start and swiped three more in the fifth end when Fujisawa's last rock rolled deep.
"We tried to come out there and be on fire, and we did," Hasselborg said. "We learned the ice well. Sara (McManus) was a real MVP of this game. She threw them well and showed that fire we wanted to have in this game."
• Tabitha Peterson erased a five-point deficit, scoring three in the seventh and stealing two in the eighth to force OT against Xenia Schwaller. The American club prevailed over the Swiss side in the shootout, winning 7-6.
• Fresh off of capturing his first career Grand Slam title at the HearingLife Canadian Open, Switzerland's Yannick Schwaller picked up where he left off in the win column, starting the week with a 10-5 victory over Sweden's Niklas Edin.
After a slow start giving up a steal in the second to fall behind 2-0, Team Schwaller bounced back big time with fourth Benoît Schwarz-van Berkel delivering an angle raise takeout to score four points in the third end. Team Schwaller continued to pour on the offence with a pair of three-point ends in the fifth and seventh.
"To start with a win at the Grand Slam, it's just good," Schwaller said. "It puts you in a spot where you can fight for the playoffs, right? Losing the first one, you're kind of in the back seat and you need a good LSD and you have to rattle a couple of wins, so I'm happy with the win.
"I was still quite jet lagged out there, to be honest. I needed a bit of extra focus to kind of do good line calls for Benoît and throw good, but we came around after the first two or three ends and played quite good after."
• Scotland's Ross Whyte, who finished runner-up to Schwaller in Saskatoon, also opened with a win. Whyte doubled up on Canada's Brad Jacobs 6-3. It was textbook curling for Whyte, who scored deuces in the first, fourth and sixth ends while limiting Jacobs to single points in the third, fifth and seventh ends.
"It feels great. I think I say it every single time I play a game against anyone at the Slams, it's always tough," Whyte said. "Those boys are obviously going to the Olympics, and they're always good, so to come out and win was a great feeling. Every win really goes far in this sort of event. There are so many good teams."
• There was a Grand Slam first between Silvana Tirinzoni and Momoha Tabata, as a second shootout round was required to determine the victor. Mind you, shootouts have only been in place across all Grand Slam events since the start of this season. Nevertheless, it was a first as Tirinzoni's Swiss squad edged out Tabata's Japanese team to win 5-4.
• Finally, here's Bruce Mouat doing Bruce Mouat things with a runback double during his Scottish squad's 5-1 victory over John Shuster's American team.
ABOUT THE EVENT
The Crown Royal Players' Championship is the fifth and final Grand Slam of Curling event of the season, featuring 12 of the top men's teams and 12 of the top women's teams from around the world.
Both divisions are split into two pools of six for round-robin play. The top six teams overall advance to the playoffs, with the best two receiving byes to the semifinals. If necessary, one tiebreaker round will be played Saturday.
If a game is tied after eight ends during the round-robin stage, a draw-to-the-button shootout will determine the winner. Teams receive three points for a regulation win, two points for a shootout win and one point for a shootout loss.
Extra ends will be played instead of shootouts during the tiebreakers and playoffs. The quarterfinals and semifinals are scheduled for Saturday, with both finals on tap Sunday.
