Brier Semi-Final, Part II

End #6
Surprisingly there are no corner guards. But ON and MAN each have a bunch lined up on the centre line in the house. Man peels the centre guard; Ont replaces it. Man peels it. Ont replaces it. MAN peels. ONT discusses a freeze, but decides to guard once again. Peel by MAN. Howard taps into the mess, driving on Man stone out and opening the other one. But one ON stone is also open. Nose hit on that rock by Stoughton. Double attempt by Howard. Hit the first one just a bit thin, leaving a draw for two by Stoughton, but he's light, as I predicted before he threw it.

MAN 6, ON 4

End #7
Odd, isn't it, how regularly we observe overcorrection by humans, as we saw with Stoughton's draw last end.

A slightly different start to this end. Corner guard by ON, but not all the others are lined up along the centre line. Fowler and Laing both make less-than-perfect shots. MAN decides to try a long angle double with Park's first stone. Just missed, but removed the Ont rock on the top 8. Hart tries to freeze but is a bit wide... ends up touching the button. But it curled around enough that MAN decides they can't make a double and go for a pick. Barely cleared the guard. Hart tries to freeze, but is light and rubs on the guard. MAN has shot rock and tries to draw for second shot, too. Beauty draw to the button by Stoughton. Immediately Linda and Ray say theres a runback double for Howard to try. Jammed it. Linda says Howard is a shade off-balance in his delivery with these recent misses. Stoughton draws to the edge of the button. Ont discussed trying for three, but they decide to try an angle raise double for two. Gets only one.

MAN 6, ON 5

End #8
Two long centre guards by ON. MAN has two in the rings. Ms. Eclectic and I both agree that ON needs a miracle to win this game. Laing rubs on the guard --- that has happened often, it seems, for ON. Three in the rings for MAN; none for ON.

Now Stoughton starts to peel the guards. Park rubs on a guard. ON still sits one. Time out ON as they discuss their options. Hart convinces the others they need a guard against a runback. Stoughton draws through a port to tap his own back to the button. Howard has an in-off to try for a steal of one. Comes up light --- probably should have known that side of the ice is heavy. Let's see if Stoughton adjusts to the weight on that side as he draws for two. Nope, he's heavy instead.

MAN 7, ON 5