News General News

The target is on the back of Reid Carruthers at the Manitoba Viterra Championship.

Carruthers and his team from West St. Paul enter provincial playdowns, starting Wednesday in Selkirk, as the defending champs and the No. 1 seed.

While being the top-ranked team means everyone has their eyes on them, Team Carruthers lead Colin Hodgson believes the feeling would be there regardless.

“Anytime you get that first seed that target is always going to be there but I think it was there anyway,” Hodgson said. “Manitoba is such a strong province that you have to play well every game no matter what seed you’re playing. For one or two or 10 it really doesn’t matter. You still have to play as well as you can to win every game at this provincial.”

Team Carruthers gelled quickly in their first season together and have taken another step forward in year two. They finished runner-up to Brad Gushue’s team at the National in November, establishing a new career-high Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling finish for the rink. Carruthers followed that up by capturing the DEKALB Superspiel title to earn a spot in the season-ending Champions Cup event.

Hodgson said there’s absolutely a different feeling entering the provincial championship this time around compared to a year ago.

“There’s a lot more confidence going in this year,” he said. “We knew what we had to work on. We did a lot of off-season self-reflecting so we could figure out what specific areas we were lacking strength in. We really addressed those areas and it’s shown so far in our play. It’s been a lot different. Bringing in our coach Dan Carey, we became much more business-like. He’s been a huge part of that for our team to perform better.”

Although it’s been just over a month since they previously hit the ice for a competition, Hodgson credits coach Carey, the 1992 Brier champion, for helping them stay fresh and prepared.

“We haven’t played in an event for 30 days, but we’ve certainly been on the ice more than ever,” Hodgson said. “We’ve been lucky we have great ice at the Granite Curling Club and at our home club, West St. Paul. We’ve been able to get out pretty much every day for the last month here and our coach has been working closely on making sure we’ve been doing all those little things right. He’s managing us very well.”

Manitoba features one of the deepest fields in Canada and right behind Carruthers in the No. 2 spot is Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen, who has finished runner-up in five of the past six provincials. Team McEwen third B.J. Neufeld told reporters during the draw announcement last week they “want to win this pretty badly.”

There’s also a lot of buzz surrounding Matt Dunstone, who recently captured his second Canadian junior men’s title and caught the attention of many of the elite with his sensational play in the final. The 20-year-old phenom from Winnipeg is ranked sixth at provincials and has been on Hodgson’s radar for some time now.

“We always knew they were a strong team. They’ve had a really successful junior year, playing in juniors and playing on the men’s tour. We always knew we needed to play well against all those guys,” Hodgson said. “It’s so cliched but you always have to play your own game and we’ve really been focused on this last month putting together all of the little things that we need to do.”

BREAKING NEWS: Curl Manitoba throws out Men’s Provincial Seeding Forms. New rankings 1)Dunstone 2)Dunstone 3)Matt 4)Dunny 5)The Rest of us

— Colin Hodgson (@C_hodgy) January 31, 2016

The final round of provincial playdowns also sees Calgary’s Kevin Koe look to defend the Alberta Boston Pizza Cup, Jim Cotter of Vernon aim for another BC Canadian Direct Insurance Provincial title, and last year’s Brier finalist Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie eye another shot to win the Northern Ontario Travelers Championship.

Watch provincial playdowns live on Sportsnet beginning with the Manitoba page playoffs Saturday at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT.

Provincial curling championships TV schedule

Note: TV schedule subject to change.