Carruthers rink taking nothing for granted

SELKIRK — There’s no such thing as an easy game at the Manitoba men’s curling provincials — even if you’re a nine-time champion and the No. 1 seed like Reid Carruthers.

The 24-team event kicked off Wednesday at the Selkirk Recreation Complex and Carruthers survived a major scare in the afternoon by outlasting three-time provincial club champion Andrew Wickman 8-7 in extra ends.

Wickman, down 7-6 at the time, missed by a hair on an extremely difficult draw around a guard at the end of the 10th that would’ve scored two for the win. Wickman — who entered the week with a career 8-10 record at provincials in five previous trips — started the day with a 7-3 win over Greg Todoruk. Carruthers had a bye as one of the top seeds.

“Manitoba provincials are just so hard. It’s always hard. It doesn’t matter who you play,” said Team Carruthers lead Connor Njegovan.

“We’ve been lucky to win it a couple times now, but I’ve never won provincials before without losing a game. You always expect people to play well, and you have a bit of a target on your back a little bit and you’ve got to roll with the punches.”

It should come as no surprise that Carruthers didn’t have his best stuff on Day 1 considering he’s just days removed from coaching Kerri Einarson to Scotties Tournament of Hearts gold in Mississauga. Team Einarson defeated fellow Manitoban Kaitlyn Lawes 4-3 in extra ends on Sunday before catching an early flight home Monday.

“It was an absolute burner of a final,” said Carruthers. “Definitely a coinflip. It was very exciting, and nerve-wracking on the bench, to say the least.”

Njegovan’s wife Selena plays third/vice-skip for Team Lawes.

“That’s sport, right? I’ve been with Reid now for four years. I would hate to see us ever get to a point where we let something like that in between us being friends for as long as we have been,” said Njegovan.

“He’s a great coach and I’m really lucky to have him as a leader of this team. Maybe when we win provincials I’ll make him buy me an extra beer or something. But we’ll try and get this week done first.”

While most teams ramp up for the final year of the quadrennial, Carruthers and Co. took a step back. The 41-year-old skip announced in June that they would not pursue the Canadian Curling Trials so he could instead prioritize his coaching duties with Einarson.

“It’s just been a weird couple of years. Reid and I formed this team four years ago and it’s changed three times since then,” said Njegovan, with Jason Gunnlaugson, Derek Samagalski and Brad Jacobs all having stints on the squad during this cycle.

“The one thing that stayed consistent was Reid having that job coaching the girls. The dominoes didn’t fall how we thought they were gonna fall four years ago so it’s hard to blame the guy for wanting to take a shot at (coaching) the trials. Obviously, you want to be playing, but we support Reid. It wasn’t a surprise to us.”

The Carruthers rink, who are ranked 11th in the country, played seven out-of-province events this season. They qualified for playoffs in four and won the Penticton Curling Classic in November with Kyle Doering filling in for Carruthers, who was gearing up for the trials in Halifax with Einarson.

“I’ve definitely been more of a stay-at-home dad this year and it’s been a lot of fun and a little bit of a reset on the body,” said Njegovan.

“There’s been a lot of years where we’ve played 80-100 games at this point and it kind of takes a toll physically, so it’s been good and I feel great coming into this event.”

Regardless of how many games they’ve played this year, they’re still the heavy favourites. Carruthers – who carved out some time to practice while at the Scotties — has won three of the last four provincials, after all.

With that said, he can’t sit on the Manitoba curling throne forever.

“I don’t know how many more of these I have myself. I’ve been trying to enjoy competing. I haven’t played as much as normal on the tour so I’m just trying to enjoy the experience,” said Carruthers.

“This could be my last provincial, and I’m just loving every minute.”

Carruthers enjoyed a successful 2025 Brier in Kelowna where they went 6-2 in round-robin action before dropping the Page 3-4 game to the eventual winner, Jacobs.

“Getting to go to the Brier one more time with this team after the run we had last year, I’d love to say ‘Hey, let’s pick up where we left off,’ but honestly, we’re gonna have our hands full this week,” said Carruthers.

“So we’ll see what happens.”

Today’s schedule features four draw times: 8:30 a.m., 12:15 p.m., 4 p.m., and 7:45 p.m. The final takes place Sunday at 3 p.m.

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