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2025 Montana’s Brier – Meet the Teams #2
Meet the teams vying for a national men’s title at the 2025 Montana’s Brier
The 2025 Montana’s Brier, presented by AGI, is slated for Feb. 28 to March 9 at Prospera Place in Kelowna, B.C. Eighteen men’s teams will compete in the national curling championship. Meet the teams:
Pre-Qualifier – Jacobs
If experience at the Montana’s Brier level is what you’re looking for, search no further than Team Brad Jacobs.
Jacobs took over Brendan Bottcher’s rink from Alberta, comprising vice-skip Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert, alternate Mike Caione and coach Paul Webster. Together the main four have a whopping 60 appearances at the national men’s curling championship.
Jacobs, formerly of Northern Ontario, has one gold, one silver and three bronze medals from the Montana’s Brier; a silver medal from the World championship and the Olympic gold medal from 2014 in Sochi, Russia.
Kennedy has a gold (with Kevin Martin) and bronze medal (with Brad Gushue as the team alternate) from Olympic appearances; two golds and one silver from Worlds; three Montana’s Brier titles to go with one silver and two bronze; and gold medals from t Universiade and the Canada Winter Games.
Gallant, who previously played with Gushue, has four gold medals from the Montana’s Brier to go with one silver and one bronze; an Olympic bronze medal with Gushue; a gold and two silvers from Worlds; two golds, one silver and one bronze from the national mixed doubles championship with his wife Jocelyn Peterman, and one gold and a bronze medal from the Canadian mixed doubles trials with Peterman.
Hebert has tasted the most success at the Montana’s Brier with four titles, two silver and two bronze medals to go with the Olympic gold medal he won with Kennedy under Martin’s tutelage; and two gold and two silver from Worlds.
Purchase your tickets for the 2025 Montana’s Brier in Kelowna at https://www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/
Team Saskatchewan-Kleiter
Two-sport athlete Rylan Kleiter has finally found his way to the Montana’s Brier.
A successful kicker-receiver with the Saskatoon Hilltops junior program, Kleiter is a former four-time Saskatchewan junior curling champion.
Along with teammates Joshua Mattern at third, second/vice-skip Matthew Hall, lead Trevor Johnson and his dad, Dean Kleiter, as coach, the Saskatoon Nutana Curling Club team dumped veteran Steve Laycock 8-5 to win the Saskatchewan Tankard.
Team Kleiter did it the hard way, after finishing 5-3 in round-robin play, the foursome rattled off three-straight victories, including the championship win over Laycock that included three-enders in the third and fifth and a deuce in the seventh.
That victory avenged an earlier 7-6 loss to Laycock.
“It’s still setting in, but we’re excited and ready to represent Saskatchewan,” the 26-year-old skip told the StarPhoenix.
“It’s a dream come true,” said coach Dean Kleiter, who was an alternate for Doug Harcourt at the 2001 and 2003 Briers. “To see Rylan and the boys perform so well is incredible.”
Rylan Kleiter, Johnson and Mattern have competed together in curling through the U-18 and U-20 levels and now into men’s play. Team Kleiter upset four-time Montana’s Brier champion Kevin Koe 10-6 at the 2023 PointsBet Invitational.
Kleiter was also an alternate on Tyler Tardi’s gold-medal winning 2019 World Junior Championship team, competing in three games. He also plays mixed doubles with Brittany Tran and finished fourth at the recent Canadian Mixed Doubles Trials, losing to Rachel Homan and Brendan Bottcher.
Hall was a regular on that 2019 Tardi team, playing second and claimed the Canadian and World Junior titles. He also won silver at the 2015 Canada Winter Games.
John Mattern is the team alternate.
Purchase your tickets for the 2025 Montana’s Brier in Kelowna at https://www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/
Team Prince Edward Island
It was smooth sailing, for the most part, for this current version of Team Tyler Smith, which earned its second straight trip to the Montana’s Brier.
Smith, vice-skip Adam Cocks, second Christopher Gallant and lead Edward White went through seven games undefeated at the provincial championship.
The Crapaud Community Curling Club team did get a scare in the final, leading 7-3 at the fifth-end break against Darren Higgins, but needed a last-rock draw for one to complete an 8-6 win in the final.
“It feels great,” Smith told The Guardian. “Any time you can win any type of provincial and represent your province at any sort of national, Atlantic tournament, or whatever it may be, is always a great feeling and it never gets old. It’s always fun and exciting whenever you can get the win.”
It marked the fourth P.E.I. title in a row as teammates for Smith, Cocks and White and second straight for this current version of the team. Smith, himself, will be making his fifth straight appearance at the 2025 Montana’s Brier Canadian men’s curling championship in Kelowna, B.C.
Smith’s best finish at the Montana’s Brier came last season when his team finished 5-3. Overall, he is 9-23 in his four previous appearances. His first appearance came in 2021 as vice-skip with veteran Eddie MacKenzie and he followed that when he, as a skip, was selected to represent Prince Edward Island in 2022. Smith earned his way to the 2023 national championship after a 9-5 win over Team Darren Higgins.
Cocks and White are both heading to their fourth-straight Montana’s Brier while Gallant, a former U SPORTS champion and the younger brother of four-time Brier winner and World champion Brett Gallant, makes his second-straight trip to nationals and fourth overall.
Gallant was the alternate for Smith in 2022, appearing in two games and in 2018 he played second for Mackenzie at the Brier. Gallant was also the lead on the Matt Dunstone-skipped U SPORTS championship team from the University of Manitoba in 2014.
Team Smith is coached by Montana’s Brier veteran, Paul Flemming.
Purchase your tickets for the 2025 Montana’s Brier in Kelowna at https://www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/
Team Alberta – Koe
Kevin Koe continued to tweak his rebuild this 2024-25 curling season, with a late move where he added 2023-24 provincial champion skip Aaron Sluchinski at vice-skip earlier this season, replacing replacing Jacques Gauthier.
Tyler Tardi at second and Karrick Martin at lead round out the lineup.
Koe claimed his 10th provincial championship and will attend his 13th Montana’s Brier, after qualifying last year via the Canadian Team Ranking System.
Koe – an elder statesman in the Montana’s Brier field at age 50 – has won the prestigious national championship four times and finished second another four times. Koe added three-time New Holland Canadian U-20 and two-time World Junior champion Tyler Tardi into the mix two seasons ago, as well as Martin, the son of Kevin Martin.
Tardi, the first to win three straight national U-20 men’s crowns, was also a gold medallist at the Winter Youth Olympics in 2016. This will be his fourth Montana’s Brier appearance; the first came as an alternate for Jim Cotter in 2021.
Koe, himself, is one of the most consistent skips in the country, who has two World gold medals and a silver to go along with his hardware and represented Canada at the 2018 Olympic Games.
Martin has tasted his share of success as well, appearing in seven previous Montana’s Briers, winning in 2021 with Brendan Bottcher after finishing second the three straight previous years. In 2022 he finished third at the men’s national championships. Martin also won bronze at the 2013 FISU World University Games.
Team Koe – who has Mike Libbus listed as alternate and John Dunn at coach – ran up a 7-1 record at the 2023 national championship before losing out in the championship round. The team had struggled at times this season, but went undefeated at provincials, defeating Evan van Amsterdam in the Page 1-2 game and the final.
Last year, Koe missed the Montana’s Brier playoffs for just the second time.
Purchase your tickets for the 2025 Montana’s Brier in Kelowna at https://www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/
Team Northern Ontario
John Epping makes his fourth trip to the Montana’s Brier, but first as the Northern Ontario rep as he led the newly-formed team of vice-skip Jacob Horgan, second Tanner Horgan and lead Ian McMillan to the territorial win.
Epping has previously worn the Ontario or Wild Card colours into the national men’s championship and finished third at the 2018 event.
His first venture through Northern Ontario was a relatively easy one, winning four-straight games, including a 10-2 whitewash of Team Dylan Johnston in the final.
Epping has tasted success as a four-time Grand Slam winner and, along with his teammate Lisa Weagle, finished third at the Canadian Mixed Doubles Trials in January.
Brothers Jacob and Tanner Horgan are both Northern Ontario junior champions, claiming six-straight provincial victories with Tanner as skip. Those teams won silver at the New Holland Canadian U-20 Curling Championship in 2016 and 2018 and bronze in 2017.
Tanner and Jacob also qualified for their first Montana’s Brier in 2023 and finished with a 6-2 record before losing a qualifying game to Team Brendan Bottcher. Tanner and Jacob’s sister, Tracy Fleury, is the reigning Scotties Tournament of Hearts champion, playing vice-skip for Rachel Homan.
This is McMillan’s first Montana’s Brier appearance. He has previously played with the Jason Gunnlaugson- and Braden Calvert-skipped teams.
The Epping team is based out of Sudbury, Ont., and coached by Mike Harris.
“This has been a different experience this week and everybody has just been so fantastic to us and very welcoming to me,” Epping told TB NewsWatch, after winning Northern Ontario. “It’s going to be exciting to wear the moose.”
Purchase your tickets for the 2025 Montana’s Brier in Kelowna at https://www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/
Team Ontario
Sam Mooibroek is finally on his way to the Montana’s Brier, presented by AGI.
After several attempts to make his way out of the Ontario Tankard, Mooibroek led his Whitby Curling Club team of vice-skip Ryan Wiebe, second Scott Mitchell and lead Nathan Steele to the title, via a 7-4 win over Team Scott Howard.
Last year, Mooibroek lost three qualifying games to miss out on the Ontario Tankard playoffs. This year he added Wiebe, a former Winnipeg skip, at third. The move paid off as Team Mooibroek went 3-0 to make the playoffs, then beat Howard 9-3 in the first Page playoff game.
Howard, a former provincial champion with his dad Glenn Howard, then defeated another fellow former champ and former teammate, Mark Kean, in the semifinal.
Mooibroek competes out of Wilfrid Laurier University and is a former Ontario University Athletics and U SPORTS champion and U SPORTS First Team All-Canadian. He has teamed up with Steele and Mitchell for several seasons and the team qualified for the 2023 and 2024 PointsBet Invitational.
Team Mooibroek was a winner at the 2022 U-25 NextGen Classic and finished a runner-up and semifinalist at the same event in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Mitchell and Steele were both members of that team.
Mitchell was the vice-skip on Landan Rooney’s New Holland U-20 Canadian Championship team in 2023 that finished 3-6 at the World Junior Championship that year. He also joined Team Owen Purcell as alternate on the 2022 World Junior Championship, where Canada finished third.
Steele was vice-skip on Rooney’s gold medallist team from the 2002 Canadian Junior Championship. He also competed at the 2018 Canadian U-18 Championship.
Wiebe competed as skip at the 2023 PointsBet Invitational and upset veteran John Epping 8-5 in his first game before losing 8-4 to Brad Gushue in Game 2.
This will be the first trip to the Montana’s Brier for the entire team, whose members are all under the age of 25. The team finished third at the Stu Sells Living Waters Collingwood Classic in November and after posting a perfect 5-0 mark at the Ontario Tankard moved to an impressive No. 23 on the World Rankings.
Gavin Lydiate is team alternate and Jake Higgs is the coach.
Purchase your tickets for the 2025 Montana’s Brier in Kelowna at https://www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/
Team Newfoundland and Labrador
Team Ty Dilello made like bandits in stealing its way to the Newfoundland and Labrador title in 2024-25 and earning its way to the prestigious Montana’s Brier.
Dilello, who joined the St. John’s rink from Manitoba after his skip Ryan Wiebe moved to represent Ontario, stole two in the ninth end to tie defending champion Andrew Symonds, then played thief again with a single in the 10th to claim the title.
Dilello joined up with vice-skip Ryan McNeil-Lamswood, second Daniel Bruce and lead Aaron Feltham.
“I’ve been doing this a long time … trying to get to a national championship,” Dilello told Saltwire afterward. “I’ve put in a lot of hard work over the years, so to do it here for Newfoundland, I’m very excited to represent them, hopefully, as best we can.
“When (Team Wiebe) split up, I really wanted to make a run of going to the Brier because I’m 31 now,” said Dilello. “So, the chance to play with these young up-and-comers from Newfoundland (and Labrador) was appealing.”
It’ll be the first time at the Montana’s Brier for all four members of the team, which defeated Team Symonds three times in the provincial event, also stealing singles in the sixth and seventh ends of the second matchup against Symonds, an eventual 4-3 victory.
Team Dilello finished 10-1 at the event, the only loss to former Newfoundland and Labrador men’s and junior champion Nathan Young. The youthful Dilello team will have its hands full at the Montana’s Brier.
As vice-skip with Wiebe, Dilello competed in the 2023 PointsBet Invitational and the team upset veteran John Epping 8-5 in its first game before losing 8-4 to Brad Gushue in Game 2.
Nathan King will be team alternate and Mike Mahon is the coach.
Purchase your tickets for the 2025 Montana’s Brier in Kelowna at https://www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/