McEwen ‘Caught off guard’ by dismissal

Mike McEwen believes his former team made a mistake by cutting him loose.

It was also a move he didn’t see coming.

The 45-year-old Winnipegger was informed last week by his Saskatoon-based teammates — Colton Flasch, Kevin Marsh and Dan Marsh — that they were replacing him with 27-year-old Tyler Tardi of Langley, B.C.

“Yeah, I’m not going to sugarcoat it: I was caught off guard,” McEwen told the Free Press.

“It’s not that there weren’t little signs that maybe there could be a change, but on the whole, I was caught off guard.”

That doesn’t mean he’s bitter about it, though.

“It’s sport, we don’t always see these things coming, and you know what, I’m at a different stage in my career than they are. And with any of these types of decisions, you’re taking a calcualted risk and it’s OK if I disagree,” he said.

“And of course, I should think that they maybe made a mistake, right? I’m confident in my abilities, so, I should think that. But they’ve gotta do what they think is best for them and they’re thinking on very long term horizons and I can’t 100 per cent fault them for that line of thinking. So, that’s OK.”

It didn’t take long for McEwen to land on his feet — and he won’t be leaving Riderville, either.

It was revealed Wednesday that he’ll join Saskatoon’s Rylan Kleiter, Joshua Mattern and Trevor Johnson next season, with Kleiter, 27, moving from skip to third. Team Kleiter had an opening after third Matthew Hall recently announced he was stepping away.

Kleiter finished the 2026 campaign ranked No. 30 in the world and competed in four Grand Slam events this season. The team also qualified for the 2025 Canadian Curling Trials, where it went 2-5.

“It’s kind of a new chapter for me. These will be younger guys, and I was just thinking they were born the same year that I graduated high school,” said McEwen. “So a part of that is it’s exciting that I really get to kind of sink in to try to transfer every bit of knowledge that I’ve gained over the last 20-something years of playing competitive men’s into helping these guys achieve making the next step. That’s exciting in itself.”

He also spoke with Jennifer Jones and Pat Simmons — both of whom skipped younger teams later in their careers — which further cemented his decision to link up with Kleiter and Co.

“She said it was an extremely fulfilling part of her career,” said McEwen. “I’m not going to put a timeline on how many seasons I have left, but to be able to play with three guys that really want to learn from me in a maximum capacity — and I’m sure I’ll learn from them, too — gets me excited. I’m really thankful that I was able to connect with Jen.”

McEwen is confident his new rink can compete with the best. While winning his first career Brier would be a dream, it’s no longer the sole thing driving him.

In 11 appearances at the national championship, his best result came in 2024 in Regina, where he lost the final to Brad Gushue. McEwen missed out on the playoffs at this month’s Brier in St. John’s, N.L., after going 5-3 in the round robin.

“I think part of this past week has been finding peace with kind of that mentality that I don’t have anything to prove. (My wife) Dawn — she was great. She’s like ‘Look what you’ve been able to accomplish as an athlete over the last almost 20 years playing at a really high competitive level. You don’t have anything to prove, but there are still things to achieve,’” he said.

“It’s not that I don’t want to achieve winning a Brier or that it doesn’t motivate me, but there’s a variety of things to achieve, especially with eager, younger players that are really on the cusp of realizing what they’re capable of in the sport. “

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