2024 Montana's Brier

The 2024 Montana's Brier, Canada's national men's curling championship, was held from March 1 to 10 at the Brandt Centre in Regina, Saskatchewan. Team Canada, who was skipped by Brad Gushue won their third straight Brier Tankard and represented Canada at the 2024 World Men's Curling Championship at the KSS Sports Complex in Schaffhausen, Switzerland where they won the silver medal.

This was the first Brier under the sponsorship of Montana's BBQ & Bar, following the departure of Tim Hortons as a sponsor.

Summary

During Draw 1 action, a heckler was ejected from the arena. Team Canada skip Brad Gushue asked for the spectator to be removed in the ninth end of his game against Nova Scotia. When Gushue was about to throw his final rock of the end, he signalled a technical timeout to deal with the matter, as the fan was distracting the team from the front row. After Team Canada second E.J. Harnden spoke to the fan, and "got into it" with him, the team decided the matter had to be dealt with.

Newfoundland and Labrador lead Alex Smith broke the previous record for longest gap between Brier appearances at 35 years. The last previous Brier he competed in was in 1989 when he threw third stones for Newfoundland. The previous record was 24 years held by the Yukon's Clinton Abel and Scott Odian (1995 to 2019).

March 4th saw numerous upsets. Draw 7 alone saw three upsets with the Northwest Territories team (skipped by Jamie Koe) defeating the defending champion Team Canada rink (Gushue), Nova Scotia (Matthew Manuel) defeating Alberta's Aaron Sluchinski rink and Quebec (Julien Tremblay) defeating Kevin Koe's foursome. Draw 8 saw Northern Ontario (Trevor Bonot) upend the #1 seeded Brendan Bottcher rink and Draw 9 saw Nova Scotia with another upset, beating previously undefeated Saskatchewan ( Mike McEwen).

On March 5, team Kevin Koe, the third ranked team in the country, was eliminated from playoff contention after losing their fifth game, and having a 1–5 record. Koe called the feeling "about rock bottom". Koe blamed the team's failure on their draw weight.

Following their Draw 15 win against Nunavut, Saskatchewan became the first team to clinch a playoff spot on March 6. They also clinched first place in their group, Pool B. Team Manitoba (Carruthers), skipped by Brad Jacobs, became the second team to clinch a playoff berth following their morning game on March 7 against Yukon (Thomas Scoffin). Later in the day, Team Canada (Gushue) and the Northwest Territories (Jamie Koe) also clinched berths. It was the first time the Territories have made the playoffs since 2012 when Koe also skipped the team. It was also the first time in his 17 Brier appearances that Jamie Koe finished with a better record (5–3) than his brother, Kevin (2–6) who skipped one of the Alberta pre-qualifier teams. The NWT made the playoffs after beating PEI ( Tyler Smith) 9–8 in an extra end in their final game. PEI would have made the playoffs instead had they won, which would've been their first playoff berth in 28 years.

The playoffs began on March 8, with the 1 vs. 2 page qualifying games. Manitoba (Carruthers) who finished first in Pool A played Team Canada, who finished second in Pool B, while Saskatchewan who finished first in Pool B played the Alberta Bottcher rink who finished second in Pool A. Team Canada, skipped by Brad Gushue won their game 9–7. In the other game, Team Bottcher prevailed 9–7 despite a burnt rock in the 10th end (lead Ben Hebert touched one of third Marc Kennedy's stones while sweeping). The Carruthers team's loss to Canada put them against the other Manitoba rink at the event, team Matt Dunstone in the page 3 vs. 4 qualifying game, while Saskatchewan played the Northwest Territories in the other 3 vs. 4 qualifying game. Dunstone beat the Carruthers rink 6–2, while Saskatchewan, with skip Mike McEwen, easily beat the Territories 7–0, thanks to six stolen single point ends.

March 9 featured the first round of the page playoff, with Gushue and Team Canada playing off against Bottcher in the 1 vs. 2 game, and McEwen with Team Saskatchewan taking on Dunstone. In the evening's Bottcher–Gushue game, skip Brendan Bottcher missed a "tricky double" in the eighth in an attempt to score a three-ender, and missed a triple takeout attempt in the ninth, giving up steals of one in both ends. With the score 7–3 for Gushue's Team Canada rink, Bottcher and company conceded the game after the ninth end. Meanwhile in the afternoon game, McEwen beat Dunstone 6–5 thanks to a McEwen making a hit against three in the 10th end to secure victory, which was followed by a standing ovation from the partisan Saskatchewan audience.

March 10, the final day of competition started with the semifinal between Bottcher's top-seeded Alberta rink against the host Saskatchewan team. The host team, skipped by Mike McEwen won the match 7–3 sending Saskatchewan to its first Brier final since 1995. The win was cemented by Saskatchewan scoring threes in the third and seventh ends. Bottcher conceded the game after nine ends. By winning the semi, Saskatchewan then played Team Canada in the final that evening. In the final, Team Canada, skipped by Brad Gushue, got off to a strong start when Gushue made two perfect draws to the button to take a 2–0 lead in the second end, after blanking the first. In fourth end, they took a commanding 5–1 lead after Gushue split a rock outside the house into the rings to score three points. After getting forced to a single in five, Saskatchewan had a strong sixth end though thanks to missed peel attempts by Canada. McEwen drew to sit three counters around the button on his last stone of the end. Gushue made a tap on one of the McEwen stones which a measurement revealed was just enough to cut Saskatchewan down to a steal of two points. In the seventh end however, Gushue made a thin double takeout to get two back, to take a 7–4 lead. In the eighth, Saskatchewan third Colton Flasch missed an attempted triple takeout, which would eventually result in McEwen being forced to draw for a single. In the ninth, McEwen hogged his first rock, which would result in Gushue having the opportunity to make a double for two on his last. This gave Canada a 9–5 lead, and Saskatchewan then conceded the match, giving Gushue the victory. It was the sixth Brier title for Gushue, his third Mark Nichols and lead Geoff Walker, tying a Brier record with Randy Ferbey. It was also the third straight Brier win for the team, also tying a record set by Ferbey.

Teams

A total of eighteen teams qualified for the 2024 Brier. The fourteen Canadian curling member associations held playdowns to determine who would represent their province or territory. Team Canada is represented by Team Brad Gushue, who won their second consecutive Brier championship at the 2023 Tim Hortons Brier.

In a change in the qualification format, the Brendan Bottcher and Matt Dunstone rinks automatically pre-qualified for the 2024 Brier field based on their 2022–23 Canadian Team Ranking Standings, which meant they bypassed the provincial qualifiers. A fourth qualifying team, Kevin Koe, joined the field as the top non-qualified team on the 2023–24 CTRS standings following provincial and territorial playdowns.

The teams are listed as follows:

CTRS Rankings

''As of February 19, 2024''

Source:

Map of teams

Wild card selection

Previously, three wild card berths were allocated to the top teams in the Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) standings who did not win their provincial/territorial championship. Beginning with this year's Brier, Curling Canada changed the qualification format where the top two teams from the previous year's CTRS would receive an automatic pre-qualification berth without having to qualify. The final berth will be given to the team with the highest CTRS ranking who did not win their provincial/territorial championship.

Round robin standings

''Final Round Robin Standings''

Round robin results

All draw times are listed in Central Time ( UTC−06:00).

Draw 1

''Friday, March 1, 6:00 pm''

Draw 2

''Saturday, March 2, 1:00 pm''

Draw 3

''Saturday, March 2, 6:00 pm''

Draw 4

''Sunday, March 3, 9:00 am''

Draw 5

''Sunday, March 3, 2:00 pm''

Draw 6

''Sunday, March 3, 7:00 pm''

Draw 7

''Monday, March 4, 9:00 am''

Draw 8

''Monday, March 4, 2:00 pm''

Draw 9

''Monday, March 4, 7:00 pm''

Draw 10

''Tuesday, March 5, 9:00 am''

Draw 11

''Tuesday, March 5, 2:00 pm''

Draw 12

''Tuesday, March 5, 7:00 pm''

Draw 13

''Wednesday, March 6, 9:00 am''

Draw 14

''Wednesday, March 6, 2:00 pm''

Draw 15

''Wednesday, March 6, 7:00 pm''

Draw 16

''Thursday, March 7, 9:00 am''

Draw 17

''Thursday, March 7, 2:00 pm''

Draw 18

''Thursday, March 7, 7:00 pm''

Championship round

Page 1/2 Qualifier

''Friday, March 8, 1:00 pm''

Page 3/4 Qualifier

''Friday, March 8, 7:00 pm''

Playoffs

1 vs. 2

''Saturday, March 9, 7:00 pm''

3 vs. 4

''Saturday, March 9, 1:00 pm''

Semifinal

''Sunday, March 10, 12:00 pm''

Final

''Sunday, March 10, 6:00 pm''

Statistics

Top 5 player percentages

''Final Round Robin Percentages''

Perfect games

''Round robin only; minimum 10 shots thrown''

Awards

All-Star Teams

The All-Star Teams were determined by a combination of media vote and playing percentages:

Ross Harstone Sportsmanship Award

The Ross Harstone Sportsmanship Award is presented to the player chosen by their fellow peers as the curler who best represented Harstone's high ideals of good sportsmanship, observance of the rules, exemplary conduct and curling ability.

Hec Gervais Most Valuable Player Award

* Brad Gushue, skip, Team Canada

Provincial and territorial playdowns

Source:

* 2024 Boston Pizza Cup (Alberta): February 6–11
* 2024 BC Men's Curling Championship: January 23–28
* 2024 Viterra Championship (Manitoba): February 5–11
* 2024 New Brunswick Tankard: January 31 – February 3
* 2024 Newfoundland and Labrador Tankard: January 23–28
* 2024 Northern Ontario Men's Provincial Curling Championship: January 24–28
* 2024 Northwest Territories Men's Curling Championship: January 25–27
* 2024 Ocean Contractors Tankard (Nova Scotia): January 17–21
* 2024 Nunavut Brier Playdowns: December 14–17
* 2024 Ontario Tankard: January 24–28
* 2024 PEI Tankard: January 25–28
* 2024 Quebec Tankard: January 23–28
* 2024 SaskTel Tankard (Saskatchewan): January 31 – February 4
* 2024 Yukon Men's Curling Championship: January 11–14: Three teams competed; Dustin Mikkelsen, Tyler Williams and Thomas Scoffin. Scoffin won the event outright by going undefeated, finishing with a 4–0 record. Both Mikkelsen and Williams finished with 1–3 records.

Notes

References

External links

*

{{2023–24 curling season

Brier
Curling competitions in Saskatchewan
Brier
Brier
Sports competitions in Regina, Saskatchewan
The Brier