Team Manitoba-Carruthers finds a winning combination at Montana’s Brier

Reid Carruthers has tried various combinations over the years to ice a team to win the Canadian men’s curling championship. He may have finally found it. 

Carruthers recruited Brad Jacobs, a Canadian men’s and Olympic gold-medal winner, to play on his team this season, and so far, so good at the Montana’s Brier, presented by AGI, in Regina.

Team Manitoba-Carruthers (5-1, Winnipeg), with Jacobs now skipping and throwing last stones, moved into a three-way tie for first place in Pool A play Wednesday after notching a 6-3 win over Team Newfoundland & Labrador (1-5, St. John’s), skipped by Andrew Symonds, at the Brandt Centre. 

Joining Team Manitoba-Carruthers at the top of the table with 5-1 records are Northern Ontario’s Team Trevor Bonot and Team Alberta-Bottcher.

It’s not every day a player of Jacobs’ calibre is available, but after a brief pause from the game, the Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., resident decided to give it a go again with Carruthers in the Manitoba capital. The Carruthers-Jacobs combo, with Derek Samagalski and Connor Njegovan on the front end – along with coach Rob Meakin – has proven to be pretty good this season. That much was made clear when they won the PointsBet Invitational in September.

“It would be super cool to win a Brier again,” said Jacobs, who started the season at third but has taken over the skipping duties to shake up the team in the middle of the season.

“I’ll say it again, I play for my teammates . . . nothing would make me happier than to see them successful. To have a part in helping win this thing for them, that would do it for me. That’s what I’m playing for.”

Jacobs admitted there’s still some work to do.

“We put ourselves in a good spot to give ourselves a shot at the playoffs,” he said. “That’s kind of the first mini-goal coming into the Brier; make sure you play well enough to get yourself into the championship round. We’ve got a lot of improving to do, we still haven’t found our form at this point.”

Carruthers said the switch has given his team a new life.

“Just trying to spark the lineup,” said Carruthers, who won the Montana’s Brier in 2011 throwing second stones for Manitoba’s Jeff Stoughton. “Brad is a great leader. He’s intense, expects a lot out of his guys, but he’s fair. He leads by example and I think that’s the most important part.

“I’ve played third before so it wasn’t hard to switch. It was something we talked about before we put this team together. We had a decent start to the year but it wasn’t at that level we knew we were capable of. Now that we’ve made the switch we’re getting to that point.”

Team Alberta-Bottcher (Calgary) kept pace with Team Manitoba-Carruthers, knocking off veteran skip James Grattan’s Team New Brunswick (0-6, Oromocto) 15-3. Team Alberta-Bottcher scored two five-enders in the eight-end game.

Team Northern Ontario (Thunder Bay), skipped by Trevor Bonot, was idle with the bye.

Another team from Manitoba also made an upward move Tuesday. Team Manitoba-Dunstone (4-2, Winnipeg), skipped by Matt Dunstone, survived a bad pick in the fifth end and rallied to defeat skip Scott Howard’s Team Ontario (3-4, Penetanguishene) 8-7 in an extra end. Team Manitoba-Dunstone crossed to the finish line by sealing the deal with an open hit in the 11th.

The loss knocked Team Ontario out of the playoff race.

Skip Catlin Schneider’s Team British Columbia (4-3, Victoria), also stayed alive in the playoff hunt, scoring an 11-2 win over Team Yukon (1-5, Whitehorse), skipped by Thomas Scoffin.

The winner on March 10 will represent Canada at the men’s world championship, March 30 to April 7, in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.

The 2024 Montana’s Brier continues Wednesday with a draw at 7 p.m. (all times Central).

Live scoring, standings and statistics for the 2024 Montana’s Brier are available at www.curling.ca/scoreboard/

TSN and RDS will provide complete coverage of the 2024 Montana’s Brier. CLICK HERE for the complete schedule. Live coverage is also available for international streaming on TSN’s YouTube channel.

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