Manitoba, Alberta, N.B. for the Brier
This is part 3 of The Curling News’ summary on provincial and territorial competitions leading to the women’s Tournament of Hearts and men’s Brier.
Part 1 is located here, and Part 2 can be viewed here.
At Portage la Prairie, the much-anticipated 100th Manitoba men’s championship delivered the goods.
Reid Carruthers was the defending champion and despite a very different team lineup in 2025, he triumphed with a 9-7 win over Braden Calvert in the championship final.
Carruthers, B.J. Neufeld, Caitlin Schneider and Connor Njegovan—with former third Kyle Doering now as alternate—led Calvert 6-1 after four ends, but the 29-year-old former world junior champion kept charging back into contention.
After forcing a single in the sixth to go down 7-3, Calvert scored his second deuce of the match for 7-5. This was followed by another force and another pair, and it was suddenly 8-7.
A fine tap by Carruthers on his first stone of the 10th end really put the screws to his Winnipeg opponent, and Calvert jammed on his final stone.
Carruthers took out Winnipeg’s Brett Walter by a 6-5 count in the semifinal.
Sean Grassie’s squad rounded out the top four, losing to Carruthers 10-3 in their playoff matchup.
Jordon McDonald—who has had a strong season—was next in line, losing to Carruthers 8-4, while West St. Paul’s “Motley Crew” led by Jacques Gauthier had a good showing, before bowing out to Grassie by a 6-3 scoreline.
The top finishers from outside of the Winnipeg area were Steve Irwin’s Brandon crew, and Jeff Stewart of Gladstone.
Over in Alberta, top seed Kevin Koe of Calgary won five straight games to capture the title at Stettler.
The run included two playoff wins over finalist Evan Van Amsterdam of Edmonton, 6-4 and 9-7, the latter score in the final.
Vam Amsterdam defeated Dylan Vavrek of Sexsmith 5-1 in the semifinal.
Edmonton’s Jacob Libbus foursome rounded out the top four.
Koe is backed by new third Aaron Sluchinski, last year’s champion skip, as well as Tyler Tardi and Karrick Martin.
The Kelowna Brier will mark Koe’s 13th appearance at the Canadian Men’s Curling Championship. The veteran has captured four titles, most recently in 2019, and lost four finals.
In New Brunswick, James Grattan of Oromocto once again captured the men’s fours title with a 6-2 semifinal playoff win over the hometown favourites skipped by Jamie Stewart at Fredericton’s Capital Winter Club.
Stewart, who earlier defeated Grattan 9-6 for the champions’ only loss in the tournament, faced the challenge of having to beat Grattan twice for the purple hearts.
Grattan, who will make his 17th Brier appearance at Kelowna, B.C. is backed by Joel Krats, Andy McCann and Paul Dobson.