The third time was the charm in more ways than one for Manitoba’s Matt Dunstone.
Sunday marked his third Montana’s Brier final appearance after settling for silver twice, and his third game against Alberta’s Kevin Koe this week at the Mary Brown's Centre in St. John's, having lost the previous two matchups.
Dunstone took care of unfinished business, winning his first Brier title with a 6-3 victory over Koe.
The team of Dunstone, third Colton Lott, second E.J. Harnden, lead Ryan Harnden, alternate Jake Horgan and coach Caleb Flaxey have earned the right to represent Canada at the World Men’s Curling Championship, March 27 to April 4, in Ogden, Utah.
"I feel very honoured, very blessed, to be able to go and represent Canada on the world stage," Dunstone told reporters. "Especially after seeing Team Jacobs go and do what they did (at the Winter Olympics), it was very inspirational. I feel very fortunate and can't wait to do the same."
Dunstone, who is No. 5 in the world rankings, reached three straight Grand Slam of Curling finals in the fall and won his second title in the series at the AMJ Masters. His team was on a roll heading into the Olympic trials in November, but came up short, losing to Brad Jacobs in the best-of-three finals.
The 30-year-old Dunstone struggled to regain his form, going winless through the HearingLife Canadian Open in December and missing the playoffs as well at the Crown Royal Players' Championship in January.
"The two months we had after the trials, obviously very difficult months for us," Dunstone said. "We had a really good reset. This was a major event that we wanted to perform at. Obviously, we would have loved to have been the Olympic team, but this was next on our list, given that this group isn't going to be together next year with E.J. retiring. This group owed it to ourselves to put our best foot forward and get a Brier championship."
When Dunstone was asked how much pressure he was putting on himself, he replied, "Absolutely none this time."
"The heartbreak that this group has had over the last three years, the amount that I've learned from that, I played free and loose all week," he said. "When you feel the hurt enough times, you don't really get too scared of it when you know what's at the end of the road."
Dunstone fell to Brad Gushue in the 2023 final and to Jacobs last year. This week offered redemption over both. Dunstone defeated Gushue 7-5 in the Page 1-2 qualifier Friday and eliminated the recently crowned Olympic champ Jacobs 7-3 earlier Sunday in the semifinal.
"It's been a lot of heartbreak over this quadrennial, losing two of these Briers too, and the trials," Dunstone said. "Very special moment for this group. We've put a lot of work into what we do, obviously. ... This moment feels way more incredible than I ever would have imagined that I did."
Sandwiched between those victories over Gushue and Jacobs was a 9-7 loss to Koe in the Page 1-2 game, giving Alberta a direct path to the final and requiring Dunstone to take a detour. Koe was also victorious 7-6 when they faced off Tuesday in pool play and entered the final with an unblemished 10-0 record.
Koe sustained the same fate as Manitoba’s Kaitlyn Lawes did during the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, though. Lawes beat Canada’s Kerri Einarson in pool play, then again in the Page 1-2 game, and entered the final with an unblemished record, but lost the one game that mattered.
The four-time Brier champ opened with last-rock advantage, but the hammer flipped back and forth through the first half with singles as Koe led 2-1 after four ends.
Dunstone blanked back-to-back ends and his patience paid off in the seventh, capitalizing on a couple of Koe misses to make a tap to score three and take a 4-2 lead.
It was pretty unfortunate for Koe that the first three-ender scored against him all week came in the seventh of the final.
After Koe hit for a single in the eighth, Dunstone nailed a thin double takeout to take two in the ninth and cushion his lead to a three-point advantage.
That handed the hammer over to Koe for the 10th and final frame, but there wouldn't be any last-shot heroics with his thinking time clock winding down as we've seen so often in the past. Dunstone, who was dialed in shooting a game-high 94 per cent, ran Koe out of rocks before it could get to that point.
E.J. Harnden's retirement is on hold as he plans to step back from competitive curling at the end of the season.
Harnden won Olympic gold and world silver medals plus the Brier while playing with his cousin Jacobs. He won three more world silver medals and two Brier titles with Gushue, who also called it a career this week. After parting ways with Gushue last season, Harnden joined Team Dunstone to reunite with his brother, Ryan Harnden, on the front end. The 42-year-old Harnden also won 10 Grand Slams, including the AMJ Masters earlier this season, to cross off the last active title in the series he was missing from the list.
Meanwhile, the 51-year-old Koe hasn't revealed his plans for the future yet. Koe won a combined six games during the previous two Brier appearances and was as low as No. 32 in the world rankings earlier this season, but he showed this week he's still got it.
Lead photo courtesy of Curling Canada/Andrew Klaver.
