reaching the playoffs in the very first appearance at the Montana's Brier for the skip and vice-skip of the Sandy MacEwan rink that is representing the Northern Credit Union Community Centre and Northern Ontario might be too much to ask.

But through three days of competition, the quintet of Sandy MacEwan, Dustin Montpellier, Olivier Bonin-Ducharme, Luc Ouimet and Lee Toner have not only proven to be more than competitive, but have also provided their fans with all sorts of moments of incredible excitement in Newfoundland.

The locals kicked things off on a winning note on Saturday, pulling even with a score of two in the ninth end with the hammer and recording a 9-8 win over Yukon - Thomas Scoffin with a steal of one in the tenth.

Though they surrendered a four point end (4th), the NOCA champs opened with the hammer and scored consistently, picking up key deuces in ends one, five and nine, as noted above.

Unfortunately, playing with fire caught up with the Sudbury gents in game two as New Brunswick - James Grattan leveraged a huge four-score in the eighth end, besting MacEwan and company 8-6 on Sunday morning.

The evening draw will forever live on in the memory of skip Sandy MacEwan who executed an absolute highlight reel combination takeout shot with his final stone of the tenth end, spilling no less than four red stones from the Northwest Territories - Jamie Koe while leaving two of his own as counters to force an extra end.

A veteran of many a Brier playdown, Koe would convert with the hammer in the extra end, though his draw that needed to catch a piece of the button would require a measurement before the NWT were able to celebrate a 7-6 win.

* if you have not seen the shot, take a moment to Google the Sandy MacEwan highlight reel shot on Sunday

With competition now intensifying, the MacEwan entry would contest a vastly different game against Saskatchewan - Mike McEwen on Monday afternoon.

After the prairie rock throwers picked up two in the first, the other MacEwen rink countered with one, giving way to no less than four consecutive blanked ends. Northern Ontario forced Saskatchewan to score one in the seventh, making things interesting, but McEwen (SK) added on a steal of one in the eighth, leaving the scoreboard reading 4-1.

In the ninth, Sandy MacEwan had a shot at a double takeout to score three but unfortunately was just a touch thin, allowing Saskatchewan to add one more, the final score reading 5-1 as Northern Ontario dropped to 1-3.

The nickel city curlers will enjoy a single game only on Tuesday, and that coming first thing in the morning as Northern Ontario battles it out with British Columbia - Cody Tanaka.

They will close out the round robin games with another solo match on Wednesday (Alberta) before facing a pair of Manitoba rinks on Thursday.