YORKTON - When the Montana’s Brier gets under way in Kelowna, B.C. from Feb. 28 to March 9, Saskatchewan curling fans will have two teams to cheer on.
The Rylan Kleiter rink curling out of Saskatoon go as provincial champions. Kleiter’s foursome curling out of the Nutana Curling Club defeated Steve Laycock – born at Saltcoats -- and his Swift Current rink 8-5 in Kindersley to claim the 2025 SaskTel Tankard.
The Kleiter win came a year after the squad had lost in the provincial final in 2024 to the Mike McEwen rink.
The McEwen team have also qualified for the Brier, returning after a loss in the 2024 final 9-5 to Brad Gushue.
McEwen said there is a definite difference this year not having had to go through the provincial event to qualify.
“We would have loved to come off the high of winning a provincial championship,” he said, adding “it certainly didn’t hurt us last year.”
McEwen said a provincial win is clearly “a great feeling” but they’ve known they will be at the Brier via a different path for some time and he and his team of third Colton Flasch with the front-end duo of brothers Kevin and Dan Marsh, have been working a plan to be ready for some time.
“It is a long time to go without competition,” McEwen told Yorkton This Week.
Part of the preparation was to head south to a warmer climate for a few days.
“We got away as a team to Phoenix. That was a lot of fun,” he said.
Then it was back to focusing on curling.
“It’s a different sense of urgency,” he said, adding “we’ve kind of mapped this out,” in terms of steps to the Brier.
Certainly the team has played well this season, especially early on.
“I think we came out with sort of a leg up on our Canadian competition. We got our feet under us,” offered McEwen, and that translated into some fine results as the season began in earnest in this country.
For the most part the solid on ice performance has remained, said the well-known skip.
“Actually we’ve been playing pretty well,” he said, adding it’s never easy to go on an extended win streak in a sport were they “play against the very best in the world. . . There’s been a couple of little blips on the road, but not very much.”
So does it feel different this year for McEwen.
“I think it’s the same feeling to be honest,” he said, adding the biggest difference might be in the atmosphere of the actual Brier event since last year the team came so close to winning it on what was essentially home ice in Regina. He said they are not likely to feel the same crowd support in Kelowna no matter what they do.
Certainly, headed to Kelowna there is sort of a dark spectre over any team from Saskatchewan, the reminder there has not been a Canadian men’s champion out of this province since Rick Folk in 1980.
However, McEwen said he does not feel added pressure either from the ghost of Folk, or the 2024 finals loss.
“I think I probably have more of a sense of calm,” he said, adding he has been through it all, and feels ready.
McEwen did note that the team now has the 2024 Brier experience to draw on, and that is important because the event is one where teams have to learn how to deal with the steady grind of high-level games.
It starts with keeping a razor-sharp focus on winning the game you are playing.
Teams need to play every game as a “must-win,” said McEwen adding every one can be the difference in making the playoffs, getting last rock, or having an extra life along the way, so you can’t squander any game.
“You can’t give an inch anywhere. They all add up,” he said.
A team needs to be resilient too, with limited time to refocus if a game goes bad, said McEwen.
“There will be adversity,” he admitted, adding it can come from any team having a big day against you. “Any team can step up and play hard.”
The week is a challenge.
“It can take a lot out of you mentally, and you want as much in the tank by the end of the event as you can,” said McEwen, adding no one hits the end fully charged. “You’re going to be depleted to some extent as you go on.”
