"He always said, 'The round robin is for practising. The playoffs are for real.'" It's a line that should make other teams shudder at the Canadian men's curling championship. Middaugh was one of the top skips in the preliminary round at the Tim Hortons Brier and has a share of first place entering the final day of championship pool play. His Wild Card Three team split its games Friday to sit at 8-2 along with Wild Card Two's Kevin Koe. Championship pool play continues at 2:30pm et/11:30am pt on TSN1/5, TSN Direct, and streaming on TSN.ca. "You try and exceed your own expectations every day and we've done that so far," Middaugh said.