Four teams entered Monday's morning draw at the Tim Hortons Brier Canadian men's curling championship with unbeaten records, but only three survived.

Alberta's Kevin Martin knocked off Saskatchewan's Pat Simmons 7-4 in the first showdown of the Brier, a battle of 3-0 teams at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg.

Martin and his Edmonton foursome, third John Morris, second Marc Kennedy and lead Ben Hebert, opened the game with back-to-back stolen points, then stole two more in the fifth end en route to the victory.

"Well, it's Saskatchewan," said Martin. "Simmons is good, and we were pretty keyed up this morning. Everyone was feeling it in the dressing room. That's pretty important. And we played well. Good, solid effort."

Ontario's Glenn Howard, meanwhile, kept pace with Alberta by taking down Northern Ontario's Eric Harnden 9-4. The reigning Canadian and world champs put up deuces in the third and seventh ends, sandwiched around a three in the fifth end to improve to 4-0. Northern Ontario dropped to 1-3.

"You can't get any better than that, and that's a good thing," said Howard. "I'm really pleased; we're playing well, we're doing what we have to do in winning games."

That set up an afternoon clash with Manitoba's Kerry Burtnyk, who also improved to 4-0 by beating James Grattan of New Brunswick 8-3 on Monday morning.

"We have to play well," said Howard. "They're 4-0 and we have our hands full. Kerry is a wily veteran, and they're a great team, so we have to be on the top of our game."

New Brunswick dropped to 1-3 after the loss.

In other morning play, B.C.'s Bob Ursel picked up his first win in four games with a 6-5 win over Quebec's Jean-Michel Menard, leaving both teams with 1-3 records.

Play at the the Tim Hortons Brier resumes Monday, with games scheduled for 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. (all times Eastern); both games will be on TSN.