Meet the teams: Brier Pool A features the top team in Canada plus a former Olympic champion
Here are the nine teams that will make up Pool A at the 2024 Montana’s Brier in Regina, which begins Friday.
The 2024 Montana’s Brier is set to get underway on Friday in Regina as the top 18 men’s curling teams from around the country compete for the national title.
The field is represented by the 14 provincial and territorial champions, defending champion Team Canada, plus three others that qualified through the Canadian Team Ranking System.
The 18 teams are split into two pools of nine(here are the Pool B teams) where they will play an eight-game round robin.
From there, the top three teams will advance to the playoff round. If there is a tie for the final playoff spot, head-to-head rankings will be used to determine who gets in as there are no tiebreaker games this year. If that doesn’t solve things, last stone draw rankings will be used.
The playoff round will begin March 8 with the championship match set for March 10 at 6 p.m.
The winner will represent Canada at the 2024 World Men’s Curling Championship in Switzerland from March 30 to April 7.
Meet the Teams – Pool A
1. Team Alberta (Bottcher)
Skip Brendan Bottcher, third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert, coach Paul Webster
The Calgary squad comes into the Brier as the top ranked team after qualifying through the Canadian Team Ranking System. The 32-year-old Bottcher — who is in his eighth Brier — has finished third place in the last two events after winning the championship in 2021. He also has three straight second-place finishes (2018, 2019, 2020). Hebert, a Regina product, will be playing in his 16th Brier.
2. Team Manitoba (Dunstone)
Skip Matt Dunstone, third B.J. Neufeld, second Colton Lott, lead Ryan Harnden, alternate Rob Gordon, coach Adam Kingsbury
The 28-year-old Dunstone — who lost to Brad Gushue in the final last year — will be playing in his sixth Brier. Before going back to represent his home province of Manitoba in 2023, Dunstone twice finished third place as the skip of Team Saskatchewan in 2020 and 2021. Now curling out of Winnipeg, Dunstone was the second team to qualify for the event through the CTRS and will be one of the top contenders this week.
