Taylor Shire
Regina Leader-Post
The preparation for this year’s Montana’s Brier has been unlike any other for Mike McEwen.
After a strong season last year, which included a silver medal finish at the national men’s curling championship in Regina, McEwen and Team Saskatchewan were one of three teams to pre-qualify for the 2025 Montana’s Brier, which begins Friday in Kelowna, B.C.
For McEwen — who will be making his 10th career Brier appearance and second as the skip of Team Saskatchewan — knowing he’d have a spot in championship months in advance was a new feeling.
“This is pretty much as opposite of an experience qualifying as I’ve ever had,” chuckled McEwen, a Manitoba product who is the import on Team Saskatchewan. “It’s new for me. I think it’s new just about for all of us.”
McEwen will be heading to his 10th straight Brier having represented Manitoba four times (2016, 2017, 2019, 2022) and Ontario once (2023) after winning those respective provincial championships. In 2018 and 2020, he earned a Brier berth by winning a Wild Card play-in game the night before the championship began. He also skipped a Wild Card team in 2021.
Last year, skipping a new team out of Saskatoon featuring third Colton Flasch, second Kevin Marsh and lead Dan Marsh, McEwen and company won the 2024 SaskTel Tankard provincial championship over Rylan Kleiter before putting together a 7-1 round robin record at the Brier to finish first in their pool.
After a loss to Brendan Bottcher and Team Alberta in the 1 vs. 2 page qualifier, McEwen and his squad rattled off three straight playoff wins, including one over Bottcher in the semifinal, to earn a spot in the final against defending champion Brad Gushue and Team Canada, who prevailed 9-5.
This year, since McEwen had already earned a Brier berth and didn’t have to play in the provincial championships, the team had to find a new way to ensure they are sharp for Kelowna, where Flasch will make his eighth Brier appearance and the Marsh brothers their fourth.
“It introduced another element, where it’s like, ‘OK, we’ve got like five and a half weeks between our last event in January and the start of the Brier right around the first of March, how do we fill that time so that we’re ready?” said McEwen, who was named the first-team all-star skip last year. “It created a new problem to solve and we went to work on that.”
Team McEwen — currently ranked No. 6 in the world — enters the Brier as the No. 2 seed in Pool B behind Brad Jacobs and Team Alberta, another team to pre-qualify for the Brier based on the results last year while being skipped by Bottcher.
This season, McEwen and company have had a strong season with wins at the PointsBet Invitational, the ATB Okotoks Classic and the Saville Shootout. The team also made it to the final at the Astec Safety Challenge, while appearing in two Grand Slam semifinals.
“We’ve been really consistent,” said McEwen. “We haven’t really had any dips or falls. We’ve been able to maintain a really high level of performance the entire season.
“Everybody’s throwing it so good. We’re ready. We’re in great condition.”
When they haven’t been competing in events, McEwen traveled to Saskatoon a number of times this season to train with Flasch and the Marsh brothers, alongside coach Pat Simmons.
And during one of their recent training sessions, Simmons quietly reminded McEwen of last year’s Brier final, which is a game he would love to be in again this year albeit with a different result.
“He got the rocks out, set up a scenario, and he’s like, ‘You’ll recognize this,’ ” smirked McEwen. “And sure enough, as soon as he set it up, I knew exactly which end it was in the Brier final.
“Other than that, I don’t think about it too much in a sense that when we do look at it, it’s just how do we use that to kind of prepare the same or maybe tweak a little bit so that we can do something even better.”
While McEwen and company won’t have the home crowd on their side in 2025, the team wants to build on last year’s success at the event.
“The one change is the venue, right?” said McEwen. “That building was electric in Regina, so unfortunately we’re not going to have that added shot in the arm.
“I get excited for every Brier I’ve ever played in, but that was something extremely just at the very top of the list experiences in Regina.”
After putting together a strong opening weekend last year with wins over Gushue and Alberta’s Kevin Koe, McEwen and company will play the fourth-, sixth- and seventh-seeded teams to start things off this year as Team Saskatchewan will face Prince Edward Island’s Tyler Smith on Saturday followed by games against Nova Scotia’s Owen Purcell and Ontario’s Sam Mooibroek on Sunday.
“I know that our opening weekend is very important,” said McEwen. “We’ve got three middle-seeded, capable teams to deal with on opening weekend.
“If you want to create momentum, Saturday and Sunday are important days.”
Following games against Quebec’s Felix Asselin, Yukon’s Thomas Scoffin and Northwest Territories’ Aaron Bartling, it will be an all-Saskatchewan matchup on Mar. 5 as McEwen will face No. 3 seed Kleiter and his Saskatoon squad, who won their first provincial championship to secure the second Saskatchewan entry.
“I’m looking forward to it,” said McEwen, who beat Kleiter in the provincial final last year. “That’s a team I want to see get experience on the national stage. They work hard. They deserve it. And I thought that was great that they won.
“That’s going to be a fun game. I know both teams, for obvious reasons, want to win that game.”
To wrap up the round robin, McEwen and company will then take on Jacobs and Team Alberta before the playoffs begin Mar. 7 with the championship set for two days later on Mar. 9.
“I want to show up to the championship feeling free,” said McEwen. “We already did the work. We’re confident. We’re ready.
“If you show up and feel like you’re reaching and have to do more, for me personally, that wouldn’t be very good recipe for success.”
The winner of this year’s Brier will represent Canada at the World Men’s Curling Championship in Moose Jaw from Mar. 29 to Apr. 6.
tshire@postmedia.com
