Kamloops product Jim Cotter has been eliminated from Championship Pool contention at the Tim Hortons Brier.
Team B.C. improved to 3-4 with a 7-4 victory over Manitoba (Gunnlaugson, 5-2) on Thursday morning, but even a victory in its Pool B finale will not be enough to avoid an early exit from the Calgary curling bubble.
“It feels like we’ve been playing really good all week, probably one of our better Briers in a while, even though our record doesn’t show it,” said Cotter, who is curling in his 10th national men's curling championship.
“We are probably two millimetres away —.one millimetre in each game against Jacobs (Northern Ontario) and Middaugh (Wild Card 3) — and it could easily be a winning record going into the last game. That’s curling.”
B.C., which includes fourth Jim Cotter of Kamloops, third Steve Laycock, second Andrew Nerpin, lead Rick Sawatsky and fifth Tyler Tardi, will finish with a Draw 18 matchup against Alberta (Bottcher, 5-2), a 5:30 p.m. start on Thursday.
“The character on this team is we are going to go out and try to win every single game and take the same approach, whether we’re in it or not,” said Cotter, noting his team has not yet discussed whether it will form again for the 2021-2022 season. “That’s the type of guys we have on this team.”
There are 18 teams competing at the Brier, nine each in Pool A and Pool B.
After round-robin play, the top four teams from each pool will carry their records into the Championship Pool, from which three playoff teams will emerge.
