Tim Hortons Brier 2017: Monday Curling Results, Updated Draw and Schedule

Day 3 at the 2017 Tim Hortons Brier showed the type of drama we have come to expect from the prestigious curling tournament.

Teams that got off to a rough start over the weekend bounced back with strong showings Monday, creating a jumbled set of standings. There are still four days until the playoffs begin, which leaves plenty of time for those on the bottom of the table to turn things around.

Here is the latest action from Draw 6 and Draw 7 with schedule and standings for the upcoming action.

Draw	Team	Score	Team
6	Alberta	7-2	New Brunswick
6	Northern Ontario	9-5	Northwest Territories
6	Saskatchewan	3-8	Quebec
6	Nova Scotia	3-4	British Columbia
7	Canada	4-5	British Columbia
7	Manitoba	10-6	Alberta
7	Northern Ontario	7-2	Ontario
7	Saskatchewan	5-10	Newfoundland & Labrador

Pos.	Team	Games	Wins	Losses
1	Manitoba (McEwen)	4	4	0
2	Northern Ontario (Jacobs)	5	4	1
3	Newfoundland & Labrador (Gushue)	4	3	1
4	Canada (Koe)	4	3	1
5	British Columbia (Morris)	5	3	2
6	Quebec (Ménard)	4	2	2
7	Nova Scotia (Murphy)	4	2	2
8	Saskatchewan (Casey)	5	2	3
9	New Brunswick (Kennedy)	4	1	3
10	Ontario (Howard)	4	1	3
11	Alberta (Bottcher)	5	1	4
12	Northwest Territories (Koe)	4	0	4

Draw 6 Recap

Alberta had gotten off to a rough start with a young team trying to live up to the two titles in three years from their predecessors. After losing their first three matches, however, they finally earned a win in Draw 6 against New Brunswick.

Both sides had been conservative through the start of the match, but Brendan Bottcher and company started pulling away with two points in the sixth end. After conceding one in the seventh, Alberta came through with three in the eighth to earn a 7-2 advantage and a win after eight ends.

The other large blowout in the afternoon session came in the form of Quebec's 8-3 victory over Saskatchewan.

Devin Heroux of CBC described the disappointment with Saskatchewan's Adam Casey:

The skip finished at just 69 percent, the only player on either team at less than 80 percent for the match. This helped leave some points on the table and end the match two ends early.

Though the final score doesn't show it, things were much closer in the battle between Northern Ontario and the Northwest Territories. A two-point end for Jamie Koe helped the Territories take a 4-3 advantage after three ends. However, opposing skip Brad Jacobs won the duel between them going forward.

Northern Ontario earned three points in the eighth and 10th ends, pulling away for an impressive 9-5 victory.

The most drama came on Sheet D, which featured points in three-straight ends for Nova Scotia to tie the game at 3-3 going into No. 10. While skip Jamie Murphy had helped steal points on back-to-back ends to keep things interesting, he couldn't do it a third time as the last rock made the difference for British Columbia.

Jim Cotter finally ended the run and helped British Columbia survive for the 4-3 victory, making both teams 2-2 for the tournament. 

Draw 7 Recap

Draw 7 featured the biggest upset of the day as Team Canada suffered its first loss at the Brier, falling 5-4 to British Columbia.

Kevin Koe had been one of the most consistent skips in this tournament and arguably in the country the past few years, but he was not at his best Monday night while leaving Jim Cotter's crew multiple opportunities.

Team Canada remains in good shape, but this was a disappointing performance in the only match of the day.

Manitoba appeared to be in trouble in its match against Alberta as well, a contest that featured some impressive shots from both sides. Six ends out of the nine played featured multiple points scored.

This led to a 6-6 tie going into the eighth end, but Mike McEwen put it away for Manitoba with a four on the ninth end to earn a 10-6 advantage and finish the match.

Alberta is the defending champions but now appear to be a longshot just to reach the playoffs.

Newfoundland and Labrador saw a similar finish that was extremely close for most of the day until Brad Gushue ended things on one shot, per Heroux:

Gushue finished 96 percent for Newfoundland while his entire team was 95 percent in the match.

Northern Ontario also continued their solid play in this tournament, improving to 4-1 thanks to a 7-2 victory over Ontario. Brad Jacobs and company simply kept the pressure on after earning a lead, stealing a point in the eighth end to force the opponent to concede down five.

Tuesday Draws

Draw	Sheet	Matchup	Time (ET)
8	A	Newfoundland & Labrador vs. Northwest Territories	8:30 a.m.
8	B	Nova Scotia vs. Canada	8:30 a.m.
8	C	New Brunswick vs. Manitoba	8:30 a.m.
8	D	Ontario vs. Quebec	8:30 a.m.
9	A	Nova Scotia vs. Northern Ontario	1:30 p.m.
9	B	New Brunswick vs. Saskatchewan	1:30 p.m.
9	C	Quebec vs. British Columbia	1:30 p.m.
9	D	Northwest Territories vs. Alberta	1:30 p.m.
10	A	Saskatchewan vs. Ontario	6:30 p.m.
10	B	Northern Ontario vs. Newfoundland & Labrador	6:30 p.m.
10	C	Canada vs. Alberta	6:30 p.m.
10	D	British Columbia vs. Manitoba	6:30 p.m.