Leaderboard congested at Northern's

There's a logjam forming smack dab in the middle of the playoff race at the Northern Ontario men's curling championship in Sault Ste. Marie.

Copper Cliff's Mike Jakubo, a former champion, leads the pack at 6-0. Five teams' including Thunder Bay's Joe Scharf, are tied for second at 4-2.

Scharf slammed fellow Lakehead skip Colin Koivula 9-2 in Tuesday's evening draw, recovering nicely from a 9-2 loss earlier in the day to Thunder Bay's Mike Assad.

Assad went on to lose 8-4 to defending champion Brad Jacobs, another of the 4-2 squads, and fell to 3-3.

Thunder Bay's other entry, the Jeff Currie rink, also split a pair of matches on Tuesday, doubling Tim Philips 6-3 in the morning draw and losing 8-6 to Patrick Gelinas in his second match of the day.

Koivula (2-4) is the lone local skip not to earn a win on the day. In addition to his loss to Scharf, Koivula dropped a 7-1 decision to Stratton's Trevor Bonot.