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Meet the Teams: Saskatchewan, Québec, Northwest Territories, British Columbia
Meet the teams competing at the 2024 Montana’s Brier
The 2024 Montana’s Brier, presented by AGI, is slated for March 1-10 at the Brandt Centre in Regina. Eighteen men’s teams will compete in the national curling championship. Meet the teams:
Team Saskatchewan
It’s a new year, new team and new province for Mike McEwen.
On the move, yet again, McEwen has taken his curling shoes and broom and moved back out west, this time landing in Saskatchewan where he’s taken over as skip for Colton Flasch’s team.
Already having represented Manitoba and Ontario, McEwen now finds himself in the green of Saskatchewan where he assumes the position of skip, while Flasch slides down to throw third stones with his front end remaining intact with the Marsh twins, Kevin at second and Brad at lead. Kevin holds the broom for Dunstone’s deliveries and veterans Pat Simmons and Brent Laing will act as alternate and coach, respectively.
McEwen had joined vice-skip Ryan Fry, Brent Laing and Joey Hart to represent Ontario at the 2023 national championship. Flasch’s foursome parted ways with Catlin Schneider at the end of last year, opening the door for McEwen.
“I played out of Ontario last year and I had a couple of teammates retire,” McEwen said of his move. “So, I was very fortunate, actually, in the timing where Kevin, Dan and Colton decided they wanted to inject a new guy into their team. Right place at the right time.”
This will be McEwen’s ninth trip to the Montana’s Brier, four representing his home province of Manitoba, three as a Wild Card team and last season with Ontario. He finished third at the 2017 nationals and that year was a runner-up at the Canadian Curling Trials.
Flasch was a member of Kevin Koe’s 2019 Montana’s Brier championship team from Alberta that finished second at Worlds. He is a four-time Saskatchewan Tankard winner and in 2015 finished third at the national championship playing with skip Steve Laycock.
This will be the third appearance at the Montana’s Brier for the Marsh twins, having competed in 2019 and 2022 with skips Kirk Muyres and Flasch, respectively.
Team Québec
To date, it’s been a successful season for Skip Julien Tremblay and his team of vice-skip Jean-Michel Arsenault, second Jesse Mullen and lead Philippe Brassard, running up an impressive 34-9 record in 2023-24.
The stretch was capped with a 6-1 record at the Québec Tankard, which included a 7-6 victory over defending champion Felix Asselin in the provincial final. Team Tremblay also downed Team Asselin 8-3 earlier in the round-robin play before losing the Page 1 vs. 2 game, 8-6 to Team Asselin before bouncing back with a semifinal win.
Team Tremblay also claimed the Superstore Monctonian Challenge in early December and the Challenge de Curling Desjardins event in late November. The latter came after a runner-up finish at the Finale du Circuit in mid-November.
The Québec champions also downed Team Asselin in the championship final of the Invitation Valleyfield event in late September.
Brassard is the only team member with any Montana’s Brier experience, appearing in one game as the alternate for Team Martin Crete.
Team Tremblay is joined by alternate Vincent Roberge and coach Eric Sylvain.
Team Northwest Territories
The first family of curling in the Northwest Territories will once again represent the region at the Montana’s Brier – the 16th time Jamie Koe makes the trip to nationals.
The younger brother of four-time Brier champion Kevin Koe and twin of 17-time Scotties Tournament of Hearts competitor and Kerry Galusha, Jamie is once again joined by vice-skip Glen Kennedy (the older brother of Marc Kennedy), second Cole Parsons and lead Shadrach McLeod.
The same foursome finished with identical 1-7 records in Pool play at the 2022 and 2023 national championships.
This will be Glen Kennedy’s third trip to the Montana’s Brier, having predominantly competed throughout Alberta before joining Koe up north.
Both McLeod and Parsons have appeared at previous national championships in 2019, 2020 and 2022 with Jamie Koe, who rattled off 12 consecutive appearances at the Brier from 2009 through 2020. He has appeared in 160 games coming into this year’s event.
This season, Team Koe qualified by downing Nick Saturnino 3-0 in a best-of-five series with game scores of 9-7, 8-2 in seven ends and 8-5, coming back from a 4-1 deficit, stealing three ends, including a deuce in the 10th in the third game.
Stephen Robertson is the team’s alternate.
Team British Columbia
Saskatchewan native Catlin Schneider will get to compete in the Montana’s Brier, presented by AGI, in his hometown of Regina, but under the colours of British Columbia.
Team Schneider, which represents the Victoria Curling Club, includes vice-skip Sterling Middleton, second Jason Ginter, lead Alex Horvath and coach Bryan Miki. The team defeated Team Jason Montgomery 5-2 in the B.C. final.
Team Schneider finished with a 6-1 record at provincials, the only loss was a 7-6 setback to Jeff Richard in the round-robin. The two teams met up again in the Page 1 vs. 2 game with Team Schneider advancing with a 6-3 victory.
Overall, the team is 35-25 this season with its best showing, outside of provincials, coming in a runner-up finish to Team Brendan Bottcher at the Saville Shootout in Edmonton in early September. Team Schneider was 6-2 there, with both losses to Bottcher.
This will be Schneider’s fourth trip to the Montana’s Brier, earning a bronze in 2020 playing second for Matt Dunstone out of Saskatchewan.
Ginter, Middleton and Horvath were all members of Team Jacques Gauthier, representing B.C. at the 2023 Montana’s Brier where the group finished 3-5 in Pool play.
Middleton is a two-time World Junior champion from 2018 and 2019, playing with Tyler Tardi, and Horvath was also a member of that 2019 team. Middleton also claimed gold at the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics with Tardi, Mary Fay and Karlee Burgess.
Horvath also competed at the 2020 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship with skip Cameron de Jong whom he also teamed up with at the 2014 New Holland Canadian U-21 Championship, before joining Team Tardi. Horvath is also an assistant ice technician in Victoria.
Ginter is originally from Dawson Creek, B.C., and a product of the strong University of Alberta curling program where he won two U SPORTS men’s titles Ginter also works as the Curling Alberta Education Co-ordinator. Ginter is also a mental skills coach.
Miki, himself, is a former 2000 national and Worlds gold medallist, playing with Greg McAulay. He was named the Hec Gervais Playoff MVP and Ross Harstone Sportsmanship Award winner from the 2000 Montana’s Brier. He coached Team Gauthier at the national championship last season and led British Columbia’s 2019 Canada Winter Games gold-medal team, skipped by Hayato Soto.
Jamie Schneider is the team’s alternate.
Purchase your tickets for the 2024 Montana’s Brier in Regina at https://www.curling.ca/2024brier/tickets/#haveaticket