It may as well have been hunting season inside the Halifax Metro Centre on Wednesday, what with all the moose calls of Northern Ontario and birdlike chants of Kooooooeeee, Kooooooeeee, ringing through the building.

Brad Jacobs and Kevin Koe bagged themselves the biggest catches of the day, much to the delight of the vocal Tim Hortons Brier fans. But, ultimately, they may need an elephant gun to bring down Ontario’s Glenn Howard, who’s at an impeccable 9-0 and guaranteed of at least second place.

Koe, of Edmonton, won both his games — 7-6 over a hard-charging Serge Reid of Quebec and 6-3 over James Grattan of New Brunswick — to improve to 7-2 and grab a piece of second place, behind Howard.

Jeff Richard’s Team B.C., which includes Tom Shypitka of Cranbrook, ended the day at 3-6.

They opened with a 7-3 loss to Saskatchewan, before rebounding to dump the Territories 10-4 in seven ends.

B.C. and NWT (1-9) were tied 3-3 after three, but Richard scored five in the next end, and stole singles in the next two.

His rink wraps up the tournament today with a morning game against New Brunswick (3-6) and a late-draw match against PEI (1-8).

Two more wins Thursday to cap round-robin play and Kevin Koe will be right where he wants to be. The problem is one of those wins will have to be against Howard.

“That would put us in the 1-2 (Page playoff) game and obviously that’s the goal coming into the week, now we just have to take care of business (Thursday),” said Koe, who drastically improved his numbers from the day before, curling 85 per cent in the morning and 88 per cent in the followup.

He’s still chasing Howard who downed Brad Gushue of Newfoundland and Labrador 9-5 in the morning and followed that up with an 8-4 victory over Manitoba’s Jeff Stoughton at night to move a step closer to securing top spot, which would give him advantage of final rocks throughout the playoffs.

Gushue, meanwhile, rebounded from his morning defeat to down Stoughton 5-3 in a key matchup in the afternoon to salvage his tough day.

“One and one, I probably would have taken that (Wednesday) and went on, knowing that it could have been 0-2, but knowing it could have been 2-0 as well,” Gushue said of his split. “One and one is pretty good against two really good teams and puts us in good position. A little help from Glenn now (against Koe) and a couple of more wins and we can get in the 1-2 game.”

It’s that much of a crapshoot as Koe sits at 7-2 with Gushue and Jacobs, the suddenly-popular Northern Ontario skip.

While Koe and Jacobs enjoyed solid days, the toughest outings belonged to Stoughton, who with the two defeats falls to 5-4 along with Quebec, which also stumbled twice.

"We're not putting eight shots in a row together at all," said Stoughton. "It gets tougher and tougher as the end goes on. You're playing wickie-tickies, angle-doubles and raise-backs and that's the name of the game, make the other guy make all the tough shots."

Jacobs had a relatively easier day hammering Nova Scotia's Ian Fitzner-LeBlanc 7-2 and controlling P.E.I.'s Rod MacDonald 5-2 after six before having to record a deuce in 10 to win 7-6. He wraps it up with tougher dates against Reid and Gushue.

Koe draws his younger brother Jamie of the Yukon/Northwest Territories Thursday morning and then has his big clash with Howard in the evening. Jamie is struggling badly at 1-8 and the only game the team has won is when he wasn't in the lineup.

Edmonton Journal