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Neufeld described McEwen’s status for the weekend as “doubtful” due to the highly contagious viral infection.

Late Friday, the team still wasn’t ruling him out, though.

“Ironically, he never got it as a kid, which is by the sounds of things pretty unique,” Wozniak said. “Curling is sort of secondary at this point. His health is the most important thing. Hopefully as long as everything is OK with the tests he’ll be out (Saturday) sometime. And then we’ll just talk about whether or not he feels like he can play.”

McEwen’s wife, Dawn, playing for Jennifer Jones at the national women’s championship in B.C., has been calling the team for updates.

“She was pretty worried when he first went in,” Wozniak said. “We tried to reassure her that he was OK and that they’re taking good care of him there. Hopefully that put her mind at ease and she can focus on what she’s doing over there.”

Neufeld says losing his skip has actually taken some of the pressure off the team.

“Maybe we’re a bit more free and easy,” he said. “When a team is feeling like that, sometimes that’s a dangerous team.”

Helping to take the heat off is an ace in the hole Neufeld and Co. hold.

As the No. 1 ranked team in Canada, they would be in the Brier wildcard “play-in” game, featuring the top two teams that don’t win their provinces.

“We know we’ll have him back for that if this doesn’t go our way,” Neufeld said.

Until then, they will try to survive Saturday’s playoffs and make it to Sunday, Wozniak and Denni Neufeld throwing an extra rock, each.