Team McDonald comfortable in spotlight on curling’s big stage

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This article was published 06/02/2025 (229 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jordon McDonald is comfortable with a target on his back.

It’s something the 21-year-old Winnipeg skip had to deal with constantly during his last two years in the junior curling ranks, as he won the 2022 Manitoba under-18 and the 2023 provincial junior championships.

Now McDonald and his young team from Assiniboine — 20-year-old third Dallas Burgess, 20-year-old second Elias Huminicki and 21-year-old lead Cam Olafson — are experiencing it at the Manitoba men’s provincial curling championship.

Expectations for Team McDonald are high as the tournament’s second seed, coming off a season in which they rose to No. 6 nationally on the strength of two wins and seven top-three finishes in their first full campaign against men.

This time last year, McDonald, despite being the fourth seed, flew under the radar as a 20-year-old to the semifinals where his team lost to eventual champion Reid Carruthers.

That isn’t the case in Portage la Prairie. Team McDonald is clearly one of the teams to beat and has looked every part of one through two contests — a ho-hum 10-2 triumph in seven ends over Grant Brown of Burntwood on Wednesday and a 9-3 victory in eight ends over Daniel Birchard of Pembina on Thursday.

“The difference between this year and last year is last year we probably did fly under the radar for some teams. I think that’s also just because we’re only a year out of juniors, like we’re essentially a U21 team, and a lot of those teams hadn’t had a chance to play us very much,” said McDonald.

“I had never played Reid (Carruthers) before then, I hadn’t played Braden Calvert too much before then. This year, we’ve had a chance to play Reid and Braden Calvert a few more times since last year, so a lot of the teams are a lot more familiar with us.”

McDonald recognizes the added pressure that comes with being one of the top seeds but chooses to embrace the challenge. He said a team’s seeding doesn’t matter once they’re on the pebbled ice.

“We try not to think about it like that. For sure, we have a little more of a target on our back, but every team here has made their way here for a reason and I think every team here is good and can beat anyone on any given day,” he said. “We still have to come out every game and have our best or we can definitely lose to some of these teams, but it does give us a little bit more intensity and wanting to prove our seed.”

McDonald will face Brandon’s Steve Irwin in an A-side playoff qualifier Friday morning. With every win in the modified double-knockout tournament, the stakes get bigger. It’s exactly what the rising young team has been preparing for all season.

McDonald and the rest of his teammates have approached each men’s event with an open mind and the goal of earning valuable experience since last year’s provincial playdowns. Their success has provided them with even more than they bargained for, and they will certainly draw on it for the rest of the week.

“The way that helps is we just kind of know now the level that we need to play at in order to have success in these events. We’ve kind of learned patience and how to grind out wins… as well as just a lot of the small things that we’ve gotten into our tool chest now that we can use,” McDonald said.

“As a team, we’ve been telling ourselves that we’re good enough to win this event, even though we’re probably one of the youngest teams in the field still and a lot of the guys are a lot more experienced than us… but provincials and playdown season, the stakes are a lot higher and there’s a lot more on the line.”

Five more teams were eliminated from provincial championship contention on Thursday evening at Stride Place, leaving 23 teams still in the running. Riley Smith of East St. Paul, who was the tournament’s sixth seed, remains the most surprising early departure after losing both of his games on Wednesday.

The top five seeds remain unblemished.

No. 1 Carruthers continued to make quick work of his opposition with an 8-1 victory in six ends over Kelly Marnoch of Carberry, while No. 3 Braden Calvert out of Fort Rouge cruised to an 8-2 win over Cale Dunbar of Brandon.

Meanwhile, Jacques Gauthier’s No. 4 team from West St. Paul defeated Justin Richter of Beausejour 13-9. Gauthier will face No. 5 Brett Walter out of Assiniboine in an A-side playoff qualifier game on Friday morning. Walter beat Virden’s Jace Freeman 10-3 on Thursday.

Friday’s draws will go at 8:30 a.m., 12:15 p.m. and 4 p.m., while the first playoff round will begin at 7:45 p.m.

Select games are broadcast on CurlManitoba’s YouTube channel.

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca