SALMON ARM, BC, February 2...New Brunswick (Steve Burgess of Fredericton) remained perfect, now at 3-0 and tied with idle Northern Ontario (Dylan Johnston of Thunder Bay), after knocking Alberta from the unbeaten ranks, 5-4 in Draw 5 action Monday afternoon at the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors.

A big three in the third end gave the Burgess team a 4-1 lead, which Calgary's Kevin Yablonski could never overcome, as the Albertans dropped to 3-1.

"We knew they were sweeping the competition, their first three games weren't really close games," said Burgess, who throws skip rocks for the Fredericton Curling Club team, while third Jon Rennie holds the broom. 

"We weren't playing our best in our first two wins but we knew that we would come out and play better against Alberta.  In our playdowns, we stepped up against the favourite and today, Alberta, obviously being a curling name, we stepped up again."

Burgess skipped New Brunswick to a 4-8 record at the 2007 Canadian Juniors in St. Catharines, while Rennie skipped his province to an identical mark last year at the M&M Meat Canadian Juniors in Sault Ste. Marie.   This year, they've combined forces.

"For each of us, we knew our first year (at the national championship) was just experience.  We (both Jon and I) know what it's like to be here.  So, we're having fun this year, we're happy to be here but we're here to win.   They've (the host committee) done an awesome job, the ice is perfect and hopefully we can keep rolling."

In other men's games, Ontario (Bowie Abbis-Mills of Waterloo) won its first game, 9-7 over Quebec (Andrew Leigh of Lachine), stealing two in an extra end when Leigh's draw to the four foot picked, as both teams are at 1-3.

Host British Columbia (Bryan Kedziora of Maple Ridge) also won its first, a 14-2 demolition of Northwest Territories (Colin Miller of Yellowknife) while Newfoundland and Labrador (Kelly Schuh of St. John's) was an 8-3 winner over Nova Scotia (Paul Dexter of St. Andrews).

On the women's side, there are now no undefeated teams after previously-unbeaten New Brunswick's Ashley Howard of Moncton fell to Alberta (Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge), 9-5.    Alberta went to 3-1 with the victory, tied with Ontario (Rachel Homan of Ottawa), who outlasted Quebec (Kristen Richard of Lachine), 5-2.

New Brunswick dropped to 2-1, the same mark as idle Manitoba (Kaitlyn Lawes of Winnipeg) and Saskatchewan (Brooklyn Lemon of Regina), as well as Nova Scotia (Marie Christianson of Halifax), who bested Newfoundland and Labrador (Erin Porter of St. John's), 11-6.  

In the other game, British Columbia (Kelly Shimizu of Richmond) also scored its first victory, 9-1 over Northwest Territories, skipped by Kate Maksymowich of Yellowknife, who suffered a left leg injury in the first end and was forced to leave the game.

Play continues Monday evening with Draw 6 at 7:00 pm. 

The round robin continues through Friday with draws at 9:00 am, 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm Pacific time, after which the first place teams advance to their respective finals next Sunday, while the second and third place teams meet in semi-finals on Saturday.

TSN will carry the women's final live on February 8 at 11:30 am PT/ 2:30 pm ET, followed by the men's final at 4:00 pm PT/7:00 pm ET.

The winners of the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors will then represent Canada at the world juniors, March 5-15 at the Olympic Centre in Vancouver.  Canada has won a leading 16 world junior men's titles since 1975 and eight women's crowns since 1988.

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