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2025 Montana’s Brier – Meet the Teams #3
Meet the teams competing 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 – Manitoba-Dunstone
Looking to get back on track at the national championship level, Matt Dunstone leads his new-look team into the Montana’s Brier, presented by AGI.
Dunstone dropped the 2023 championship final to Team Brad Gushue and hopes to get back to the championship final with EJ Harnden rejoining his brother Ryan Harnden. E.J. Harnden takes over the second position and bumps Colton Lott up to vice-skip as he replaces the departed B.J. Neufeld.
Dunstone will make his seventh appearance at the Montana’s Brier and sixth straight and hopes to snap a 13-year championship drought for Manitoba. The last time the province carted off the Tankard trophy was back in 2011 when skip Jeff Stoughton, now a coach with Curling Canada, topped the field.
Along with his runner-up finish in 2023, Dunstone also placed third at the event in 2020 and 2021. Dunstone is also a former two-time New Holland Canadian U-20 champion who went on to finish third twice at the World Juniors.
His team has plenty of Montana’s Brier experience as the Harnden brothers are former national champions under skip Brad Jacobs.
E.J. Harnden also won two Montana’s Brier titles with skip Brad Gushue. Besides those latter 2023 and 2024 crowns, he was a member of Jacobs’ Northern Ontario team that won the national championship in 2013 and finished second at Worlds. That team, which included his brother, also won gold at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. E.J. Harnden will make his 16th trip to nationals and 11th straight and has one silver and three bronze medals from the Montana’s Brier.
Brother Ryan Harnden was a part of the triumphs for Team Jacobs and will also compete in his 16th Montana’s Brier and 11th straight. Harnden also has two silver and three bronze medals from his other Montana’s Brier appearances.
Lott has competed in three Montana’s Briers, his first year as lead with Mike McEwen’s Manitoba team and in 2023 with Dunstone. He is a former Canadian and World Junior champion from 2015, playing as alternate with Team Braden Calvert, and Lott also finished third twice at World Juniors with Dunstone in 2013 and 2016.
Lott and his wife Kadriana are the reigning Canadian mixed doubles champions.
Adam Kingsbury is the team’s alternate and Caleb Flaxey is the coach.
Purchase your tickets for the 2025 Montana’s Brier in Kelowna at https://www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/
Team British Columbia
There’s a new kid in town when it comes to British Columbia’s Montana’s Brier representative as former provincial junior champion Cameron de Jong, of the Victoria Curling Club, earned his first men’s title.
De Jong and his team of vice-skip Alex Horvath, second Corey Chester, lead Brayden Carpenter and alternate Paul Cseke used a strong second half of the game to defeat Team Glenn Venance 10-8 in this year’s provincial final. De Jong used a four-ender in the sixth and a three-ender in the eighth to pull out the win.
“It’s unbelievable. I’m so happy that we were able to prevail in this game. It was a slow start. I guess we’re s second-half team because we came out strong , especially with that four,” de Jong, who has competed in the New Holland Canadian U-20 championship, told Curl BC after the win.
“I’ve worked my whole curling career towards this moment,” he added in the Victoria Times Colonist. “I thought it would come a little earlier. Now that it’s finally here, I’m so excited to put on the B.C. colours and represent the province in the Brier. It’s the reason we play, to put on that B.C. jacket, and play in the Brier. It means everything. I have a lot of thankfulness to all my former teammates and coaches who helped me get here. And to my current team, which is an amazing group.”
This is de Jong’s first Brier.
Horvath, meanwhile, will attend his third straight as he was part of the 2024 Catlin Schneider-skipped rink and 2023 Jacques Gauthier-led team, that both represented the Victoria Curling Club. Horvath also won Canadian and World Junior titles in 2019 with skip Tyler Tardi and was the lead on de Jong’s 2014 B.C. junior championship team.
Chester is a former two-time B.C. junior champion, who came into the B.C. men’s championship after attempting to qualify at the Canadian Mixed Doubles Trials with clubmate Taylor Reese-Hansen. He was the alternate for Brent Pierce at the 2022 Montana’s Brier.
Cseke, who did fill in at times during the provincials due to team illnesses throughout the tournament, has competed in several B.C. men’s provincial championships.
The de Jong team will have plenty of backing with the Montana’s Brier set for Kelowna, B.C., and is coached by former Brier and World champion Bryan Miki.
Purchase your tickets for the 2025 Montana’s Brier in Kelowna at https://www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/
Pre-Qualifer – Saskatchewan-McEwen
A finalist at the 2024 Montana’s Brier, presented by AIG, Team Mike McEwen looks to continue its success at the 2025 national men’s championship.
McEwen, who made the move west to Saskatchewan last season, leads his team of third Colton Flasch and his front end of the Marsh twins, Kevin at second/vice-skip and Dan at lead. Veterans Pat Simmons and Brent Laing will act as coach and alternate, respectively.
This will be McEwen’s 10th trip to the Montana’s Brier, four representing his home province of Manitoba, three as a Wild Card team, two with Saskatchewan and one with Ontario. Aside from last year’s runner-up finish, 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 and then finished second last year.
This will be the fourth appearance at the Montana’s Brier for the Marsh twins, having competed in 2019 and 2022 with skips Kirk Muyres and Flasch, respectively, and last season with McEwen.
Laing has not competed much this season, outside of mixed doubles with his wife Jennifer Jones, but this marks his 16th trip to the Montana’s Brier, winning three golds, six silvers and two bronze. He is also a three-time World Curling champion.
Purchase your tickets for the 2025 Montana’s Brier in Kelowna at https://www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/
Team New Brunswick
After missing out on the 2023 men’s national championship, James Grattan will make a return to his second-straight Montana’s Brier, presented by AGI. It will be the veteran’s 17th appearance at the prestigious event.
Grattan’s best finish at the Montana’s Brier was a 9-4 record in his first appearance in 1997. This year he is joined by vice-skip Joel Krats, second Paul Dobson and lead Andy McCann, who all played together last season.
Skip Grattan had represented New Brunswick three straight years from 2020-22 before failing to qualify two years ago, eliminated in the provincial semifinals by eventual champion Scott Jones.
This will be Krats’ second Montana’s Brier. He is just 23 years of age and was a member of skip Owen Purcell’s Nova Scotia team that claimed bronze at the 2022 World Junior Championship.
Dobson will make his sixth trip to nationals, his first was as a second for Wade Blanchard in 2005 and then as a skip in 2007. He joined Team Grattan in 2020 and competed in the 2020, 2022 and 2024 Montana’s Briers with Grattan.
McCann is a longtime member of Team Grattan, having competed in five previous Montana’s Briers with the veteran skip. This will be his ninth appearance, having also previously played with skips Jim Sullivan, Terry Odishaw and Marc LeCocq.
It will be a family affair as alternate Drew Grattan is the son of James Grattan and the skip will also have brother Dean Grattan as coach.
Purchase your tickets for the 2025 Montana’s Brier in Kelowna at https://www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/
Team Manitoba – Carruthers
Make it an even dozen trips to the Montana’s Brier, presented by AGI, for Reid Carruthers as the veteran defeated Team Braden Calvert 9-7 in the Manitoba championship in Portage la Prairie.
Carruthers, who is joined by vice-skip B.J. Neufeld, second Catlin Schneider and lead Connor Njegovan, is a former Montana’s Brier and World champion playing on Jeff Stoughton’s rink in 2011. He has also placed second and third in 2013 and 2014, respectively.
This will be his 13th trip to the national men’s curling championship. Carruthers has also won gold at the Canadian Mixed Doubles Championship in 2017 with Joanne Courtney and the two added a bronze in 2018.
This is Neufeld’s 10th appearance at the Montana’s Brier, but he was a late addition to this team, joining in January, after playing with Matt Dunstone. Neufeld is a former Montana’s Brier champion from 2019, curling with Kevin Koe out of Alberta, and finished as a runner-up two more times with Koe. Neufeld also has silver medals from the 2019 Worlds and 2017 Canadian Curling Trials. He also finished third at the 2021 Canadian Curling Trials and 2017 Brier.
Saskatchewan native Catlin Schneider heads east after representing British Columbia at last year’s Montana’s Brier. His team, which included vice-skip Sterling Middleton, second Jason Ginter and lead Alex Horvath, finished 4-4 at nationals.
This will be Schneider’s fifth trip to the Montana’s Brier, earning a bronze in 2020 playing second for Matt Dunstone out of Saskatchewan.
Njegovan will make his sixth-straight appearance at the Montana’s Brier, playing three as lead with skip Jason Gunnlaugson, the first two as Team Manitoba and the third as Team Wild Card 3. He is a silver medallist from the 2010 Canadian Junior championship.
Carruthers has eight provincial men’s championships to his name. He claimed his first three with Stoughton and won as a skip in 2015 and 2018, before winning as vice-skip for Mike McEwen in 2019 and 2022.
Kyle Doering is the team alternate and Rob Meakin is the coach.
At this year’s provincials, Team Carruthers stole two in the first end and scored four in the fourth for a 6-1 lead over Calvert, who bounced back with deuces in the fifth, seventh and ninth ends, but trailed by one coming home without hammer. He missed a double hit with his final stone of the 10th.
Purchase your tickets for the 2025 Montana’s Brier in Kelowna at https://www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/
Team Northwest Territories
In a surprise finish, skip Aaron Bartling upset 16-time Montana’s Brier representative Jamie Koe to take the Northwest Territories crown.
Bartling is joined by vice-skip D’Arcy Delorey, second Norman Bassett, lead Eric Preston and alternate Adam Naugler of Hay River Curling Club.
The surprise came after Team Bartling finished the double-round-robin Territorial event – with Team Koe and Team Greg Skauge – at just 1-3, losing 9-4 and 8-5 to Koe. Bartling edged Skauge 6-5 in the semifinal, while Koe advanced straight to the championship game with a 4-0 record.
Team Bartling then stole one in the 10th end and another in the extra end to sneak past Koe 7-6.
There is very little Brier experience on Team Northwest Territories with Bartling appearing as an alternate with Prince Edward Island at the 2021 Montana’s Brier.
Delorey was previously a skip competing at the 2024 and 2016 Canadian Curling Club Championships representing the NWT. He also previously played in the same event as a vice-skip from 2012-14.
Like Delorey, Bassett and Preston will be attending their very first Montana’s Briers and Adam Naugler will be the team alternate.
Purchase your tickets for the 2025 Montana’s Brier in Kelowna at https://www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/