The Great Escape!

Team Manitoba-Carruthers into the final four at 2025 Montana’s Brier

In the space of 48 hours at the 2025 Montana’s Brier, presented by AGI, the range of emotions felt by Reid Carruthers and his Manitoba championship team from Winnipeg has been extreme, to say the least.

Wednesday night, the team left the ice at Prospera Place in Kelowna, B.C., with the very realistic scenario that their Brier was over, despite a fine 6-2 round-robin record.

Carruthers, vice-skip B.J. Neufeld, second Catlin Schneider, lead Connor Njegovan, alternate Kyle Doering and coach Rob Meakin didn’t play on Thursday, and could only watch and hope for the necessary result that would get them into the playoffs.

They got it when their fellow Winnipeggers, Team Matt Dunstone, scored one in the 10th end for a 7-6 win over Team Canada, skipped by Brad Gushue (St. John’s, N.L.).

Friday night before a lively sellout crowd of 5,309, Team Carruthers continued living a charmed life in the Page 3-4 qualifying round, getting a massive steal of two in the sixth end en route to a 6-4 victory over Saskatchewan’s Team Mike McEwen (Saskatoon).

With the win, Team Manitoba-Carruthers advances to Saturday’s 12:30 p.m. Page 3-4 playoff against Alberta’s Team Brad Jacobs (Calgary).

“I don’t know; It almost feels like divine intervention, something wild’s going on,” said Carruthers. “But we’re not going to question it. We’re just going to roll with it.”

It was a 2-2 tie with Team Saskatchewan-McEwen holding last rock in the sixth end. McEwen was sitting one guarded in the four-foot, and had a choice between a draw through a port for the second point, or a risky triple-takeout that could have scored three.

He chose the latter, and it couldn’t have gone more disastrously. While the thrown stone made contact with the two targeted front stones, it didn’t make enough contact and rather than coming to rest for a second point, it continued through the port and removed the original counting stone, gifting Team Manitoba-Carruthers a stunning stolen deuce out of thin air.

“Monumental error in reading angles,” conceded a disappointed McEwen. “Yeah, that’s the game. We should have just drawn for two; I’m not even sure it was there for three. So that was it. We controlled the game, we outplayed them the entire game, but we made a catastrophic error.”

Carruthers was equally stunned by the outcome, but cut his former teammate some slack on the decision to attempt the shot.

“I would have played it if I were him, too,” said Carruthers. “I didn’t have steal of two on the table. I thought if he hit it a certain way, he may only get one. But, you know, to give us the steal of two is obviously fortunate for us. That was a big break and a huge momentum swing.”

Team Manitoba-Carruthers padded its lead with a deuce in the eighth and it was clear sailing to the finish line from there, and now, it sits three wins away from a Montana’s Brier.

‘We have a couple of guys (Carruthers in 2011, Neufeld in 2019) that have won this thing before and a couple of young guys that are full of confidence,” said Carruthers. “So anything’s possible, really. But you know what? We’re still the team that’s not expected to win. We’re the underdog and we quite relish that role.”

In the other game, Team Alberta-Jacobs hung on for a 10-6 win over Nova Scotia’s Team Owen Purcell.

Jacobs, with by vice-skip Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert, alternate Mike Caione and coach Paul Webster, were at their most efficient best in the early going, taking two in the first end and three more in the third, and were sailing with an 8-3 lead through seven ends.

But the Bluenosers fought back with a deuce in the eighth and stole one in the ninth, and had two half-buried in the four-foot when Jacobs settled in for his final shot. But Jacobs made a double-takeout to score two.

“They (Nova Scotia) worked us hard tonight,” said Jacobs. “Congratulations to them on a great Brier.”

Later Saturday, the Page 1-2 playoff will feature three-time defending champs Team Canada taking on Manitoba’s Team Dunstone at 6:30 p.m. (All times Pacific).

The winner will advance to Sunday’s 5 p.m. gold-medal game, while the loser drops into Sunday’s 11 a.m. semifinal.

Sunday’s gold-medallist will represent Canada at the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship March 29-April 6 in Moose Jaw, Sask.

Live scoring, standings and statistics for the 2025 Montana’s Brier are available at www.curling.ca/scoreboard/.

For ticket information for the 2025 Montana’s Brier, go to www.curling.ca/2025brier/tickets/

This story will be available in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/2025brier/nouvelles/?lang=fr