Mike McEwen (curler)
Michael McEwen (born July 30, 1980 in Brandon, Manitoba) is a Canadian curler from Winnipeg, Manitoba, who grew up in Brandon, Manitoba. McEwen won six Grand Slams in his career before his team qualified for their first Brier, Canada's national championship in 2016. He is noted as one of the top curlers using the Manitoba tuck delivery today. Career Early career In 1998, McEwen won his first of two Manitoba Junior championships, sending him and his team of David Chalmers, Bryce Granger and Kevin Schmidt to the 1998 Canadian Junior Curling Championships. There, he led his Manitoba rink to 9-3 round robin record, in 2nd place. This put the team in a semifinal match up against Ontario's John Morris. McEwen would lose the match 8–4, settling for third place. Three years later, McEwen and his new team of Denni Neufeld, Geordie Hargreaves and Nolan Thiessen won the Manitoba junior championships again, qualifying them to represent Manitoba at the 2001 Canadian Juniors. There, they finished in 3rd place after the round robin, with a 9–3 record. This put the team into the semifinals against Northern Ontario's Brian Adams. McEwen beat Adams 8–3, qualifying for the final against Newfoundland's Brad Gushue. McEwen and his Manitoba rink would lose to Gushue, by a score of 8–3, placing them in 2nd place. In 2003, McEwen and teammates Denni Neufeld, Sheldon Wettig , Marc Kennedy and Nolan Thiessen represented Canada at the 2003 Winter Universiade. McEwen and Wettig represented Brandon University, while his teammates represented the University of Manitoba (Neufeld and Thiessen) and the University of Alberta (Kennedy) . The team finished the round robin with a 6–3 record, in third place. The team then went on to beat Great Britain's Paul Stevenson in the semi-final, then Switzerland's Cyril Stutz in the final, to claim the gold medal. The following season, McEwen joined the James Kirkness rink as the team's third. McEwen would play for Kirkness for two seasons, and won one World Curling Tour event, the Dauphin Clinic Pharmacy Cashspiel. In 2005, McEwen would form his own team of Justin Richter, Matt Wozniak and Andrew Melnuk. However, his lone Grand Slam appearance before forming his current rink in 2007 was the February 2006 Masters of Curling event, where he joined up with Ryan Fry. For the 2006–07 season, Richter and Melnuk left the team and were replaced with Geordie Hargreaves and Adam Guenther. The team disbanded after just one season together. 2007-2010 McEwen formed a new rink once again of brothers Denni and B. J. Neufeld and Matt Wozniak in 2007. In their first season together, they were a semi-finalist at the 2008 Safeway Championship, Manitoba's provincial championship. Their first Grand Slam event as a team was at the end season, at the 2008 Players' Championships. The team won two games, before being eliminated. At the conclusion of the 2008–09 season the McEwen team was ranked 7th on the CCA rankings. They had made it to three Grand Slam playoffs, and finished 4th at