By Nathan Kanter

Close matches on first night of Meridian Canadian Open

Jan 3, 2017 | 9:28 PM

The Meridian Canadian Open kicked off Tuesday with five close games at the Civic Centre, as each game could have went either way on opening night.

Each and every game was won by three points or less and two games went into an extra end.

Unfortunately, neither Saskatchewan skips were able to pull out a win, as team Laycock fell to Team Bottcher 7-4, and Team Korte fell to Team Gushue 8-7 in an extra end.

Gushue was ahead 7-4 after six ends, but Korte wouldn’t go down quietly. He narrowed his opponent’s lead to 7-6, and although Gushue had the hammer in the final end with a one-point lead, Korte was able to steal a point after Gushue’s final shot wasn’t quite up to snuff.

“Bruce really laid it down in the perfect spot,” Gushue said. “[We] still almost made [the last rock], which was nice, but we played a great extra end and really left ourselves a pretty easy situation.”

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And here's what @BradGushue had to say after pulling out the win in an extra end on opening night of @grandslamcurl Canadian Open #GSOC pic.twitter.com/ZLwxefigub

— Nathan Kanter (@NathanKanter11) January 4, 2017

Korte said the difference in the extra end was not being able set up a guard, something they were able to do in the eighth end.

“Basically we‘re dealing with rocks on the edges of the wings that we tried to get around to force Brad to maybe make a draw,” Korte explained. “But unfortunately we didn’t get it set up.”

Korte said playing in his home province was fabulous.

“It was electric,” Kotre said. “The crowds? Couldn’t believe it. For a Tuesday night draw, it was packed.”

“[When] your home crowd is cheering for you, couldn’t ask for more.”

Here's my conversation with Saskatoon skip @TeamKorte after his tight 8-7 loss to @TeamGushue last night @grandslamcurl Canadian Open #GSOC pic.twitter.com/Px3g9fBB2x

— Nathan Kanter (@NathanKanter11) January 4, 2017

Laycock agreed it was a fantastic atmosphere to curl in.

“You always have the best crowds in Saskatchewan – a knowledgeable crowd. “You could tell they’re eager. They were here before the players even, some of them. It’s a lot of fun. We’re looking forward to a good week of that.”

After the losses, both Korte and Laycock are in now in the ‘B’ bracket of the round robin.

Laycock said that although his first game wasn’t ideal, there were still some positives, especially since they were behind 3-0 after the first end and got themselves back into the game.

“We did a pretty good job clawing back a couple times,” he said. “They had a couple measures where it could have been us, could have been them and it ended up going their way too. Just not quite what we needed and we’ll battle back tomorrow.

“We threw a lot of good rocks today. We need to just [be] a little more consistent throughout and have a few breaks go our way and definitely position a little bit better and make it tougher on the opponent.”

In other games, Reid Carruthers fell in an extra end 8-7 to Team Shuster from Duluth, Minnesota. Team Baldson from Kingston, Ont. took down defending champion Team Epping of Toronto 7-4.

And on the women’s side, Switzerland’s Team Tirinzoni got past Team Einarson of Winnipeg 6-4.

Some big names get things started bright and early on Wednesday morning on the women’s side, including Team Homan, Team Jones, and Team Sweeting. Draw two begins at 8 a.m., while subsequent draws on Wednesday are scheduled for 11:30 a.m., 3 p.m., and 6:30 p.m.

Nathan Kanter is a reporter with battlefordsNOW and the voice of the Battlefords North Stars. He can be reached at Nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11