Tim Hortons Brier: Koe’s Friday struggles force Alberta rink to play through semifinal

Kamloops, B.C. — Who could have seen this coming 24 hours ago? All Team Alberta needed was a win against Québec to earn hammer and choice of rocks throughout the playoffs, but the team struggled, shooting 79 per cent against a rink that wasn't missing any shots.

So they came into the 1-2 page playoff game Friday night as the lower seed, but still conceivably the favourites in the field at the 2014 Tim Hortons Brier. However, Kevin Koe and Co. struggled again, the second best of two teams on the ice and fell 9-5 nine ends later to John Morris, Jim Cotter and home team British Columbia. Koe will now have to go through the semifinal on Saturday night, against the winner of Manitoba and Quebec, to have another chance at the B.C. rink.

"We have another life. We've gone through the semis at the Brier before," Koe told the media post-game. He wasn't visibly shaken in anyway, but conceded the loss was just "one of those days." In Koe's two previous Brier apperances, he's won gold (2010 Halifax) and silver (2012 Saskatoon) but never earned the direct path to the final, requiring to go through the semifinals both times.

Koe better hope that his inverse momentum recedes overnight, since he can't really afford another performance like Friday's. After a win against Prince Edward Island Thursday afternoon, Koe was riding high. B.C. skip Morris admitted that his team only had about a 20 per cent chance at the top seed at that point in the tournament, but the surprise upset by Québec and Jean-Michel Menard neatly wrapped up a complicated playoff picture.

"Both teams played great against us today," admitted Koe.

If there was a defining moment for British Columbia in the game, it was Cotter's first rock in the fourth end, a runback that cleared the Alberta rock out of the house and allowed B.C. to sit three. Cotter would hit and stick for the three-ender in the 4th. If there was a defining moment for Team Alberta, it was later in the sixth end when third Pat Simmons slipped on the ice surface and burned a potential guard stone. B.C. wound up scoring two in the sixth and took an 8-3 lead, and the game was effectively over at that point.

"I struggled a bit and we were on the wrong side of the inch there. We were in trouble there when we weren't playing our best, I had a couple of picks that cost us one or two points."

"There was no chance they knew that was going to happen," Koe said of Cotter's shot in the fourth. "But you know, I had a good freeze coming in and it picked about a foot or two short of the rock and if it doesn't do that, it gets right in there and frozen on there really good and it would have been a lot harder shot."

Cotter and Morris made just about every shot in the first four ends of the game. They wound up shooting 86 and 93 per cent, respectively, but not because the degree of difficulty was easy. Morris drew wonderfully around some aggressive Koe guards in the first end, setting the tone for the game, and Cotter made a difficult double in the third that forced Alberta to score a single.

From then on in, it was guard-peel-guard-peel-guard-peel, and Alberta was never able to load up the house with many rocks, their high point coming with a steal of one point in the eighth on a rare Cotter miss, coming into the house heavy by about a foot. Morris was helped along thanks to a delicious game by his front end of Rick Sawatsky and Tyrel Griffith, the latter scoring a game-high 97 per cent and refusing to miss a peel—that was compared to an 81 per cent curling rate by Koe's second Carter Rycroft.

After a difficulty Thursday loss, Morris is right back where he needs to be, taking the day off tomorrow and ready to play in Sunday's final against Alberta, Quebec or Manitoba. Morris has already beaten Koe twice on the week, but his only two losses were against Manitoba and Quebec. If Koe's able to correct whatever went wrong Friday, he'll get a third chance at B.C. after going 0-2 so far. Koe went so far to admit that the team's round robin game against each other was a bit of a laugher. "Both teams played terrible," he said, but that was in the morning. Will the third time around be the charm?