Gauthier’s ragtag team a natural fit

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This article was published 03/02/2025 (416 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jacques Gauthier considered quitting curling altogether.

As teams across the country were finding their groove in September, Gauthier, a rising 26-year-old player and two-time world junior champion, was without a rink for the first time in his career after being let go by Kevin Koe and suddenly found himself at a crossroads with the sport.

The West St. Paul resident’s first instinct was to reach out to any high-calibre team he thought could benefit from his services late in the Olympic quadrennial, but those options were few. He used the next month to contemplate his future.

“I just wanted to take a step back from the game and really figure out if all the time and the effort was something that I was willing to continue to do,” said Gauthier, who skipped a team out of British Columbia during the 2022-23 campaign before joining Koe’s Alberta-based squad as a second last season.

“I was happy taking a step back and just seeing for me what felt right. If I missed the game, I was going to come back to it, and if I didn’t miss it, I was going to take a step back and maybe try to advance my career, or whatever it may be.”

What transpired over the next four months would not only renew Gauthier’s appreciation for the game but has made him one of the teams to beat at the 100th Manitoba men’s provincial curling championship in Portage la Prairie this week.

As Gauthier mulled his future into late October, he never fully removed himself from the game. Lunch hours were spent throwing rocks at a nearby club, and his free time at home involved watching that week’s marquee event. Not having a tournament circled on his calendar was an unsettling feeling, and his competitive fires needed to be stoked.

A door opened surprisingly a few weeks later when Reid Carruthers’ team announced it had parted ways with longtime second Derek Samagalski. Gauthier immediately reached out to Samagalski to form a partnership, with the deadline looming for the provincial championship’s Winnipeg regional qualifier — their only chance to reach the Manitoba playdowns.

“I just feel fortunate to be playing in it, and then fortunate enough that I feel like maybe we have a chance to actually win the whole thing.”– Jacques Gauthier

Things came together quickly once Samagalski confirmed his intent to play third days before the deadline. Gauthier recruited Tanner Lott of Winnipeg Beach to play lead and, after striking out trying to find a fourth player, reached out to his father Ron, who was the only person he knew would be an alternate on a three-person team.

Assembled at the last hour, the three-legged team of castoffs went undefeated in December’s regional qualifiers to earn a spot in the provincial tournament, despite never having played with each other previously.

“We played really great. And the big thing for me was that our dynamic felt really natural. It was bizarre,” said Gauthier.

“We played on the Friday night, we met up an hour before our game and shook each other’s hands and kind of reintroduced each other because we knew of each other but we’d never played with each other.”

Gauthier contemplated adding another experienced player to the team’s front end after regionals — most notably BJ Neufeld, who was cut by Matt Dunstone’s team earlier this year — but liked what he had after the team played well again across six contests in the Manitoba Open last month.

Now Gauthier, Samagalski and Lott will try to pull off the improbable by winning the Manitoba playdowns to earn a spot at the Brier in Kelowna, B.C., later this month. The nationally unranked rink is remarkably the fourth seed in this week’s modified double-knockout tournament, which goes Wednesday to Sunday at Stride Place, owing to a wealth of experience between its players.

Gauthier won the B.C. men’s provincial championship as a skip in 2023 and qualified for the national tournament with Koe as a wild-card entry last season. Meanwhile, Samagalski is a six-time Manitoba champion, and Lott was a provincial finalist while playing second for his brother Colton in 2022.

“I’m going into this provincials with a bit of a renewed sense of appreciation for it. I think in the past, it’s easy to take advantage of being able to compete and being able to play in provincial championships, but to be honest, this year, I just feel fortunate to be playing in it, and then fortunate enough that I feel like maybe we have a chance to actually win the whole thing,” Gauthier said.

“There’s lots of work that’ll go into getting there, but if you had asked me a month and a half ago if I thought I’d be in the spot, I would have told you absolutely not. Just very appreciative for how everything’s happened in the last few months.”

Assiniboine’s Brett Walter is the fifth seed, while Braden Calvert out of Fort Rouge and Assiniboine’s Jordon McDonald are the third and second seeds, respectively. Every team expects to go through the top-seeded Carruthers at some point to reach the top of the mountain, though.

Carruthers, an eight-time provincial champ, holds the top ranking in the provincials for the second year in a row. The Winnipeg skip won last year while throwing third for Brad Jacobs, who took over Brendan Bottcher’s team in Alberta this season.

Now with third Catlin Schneider, second Kyle Doering, lead Connor Njegovan and recently added Neufeld as an alternate, Carruthers said a ninth title would mean a little extra, given the centennial anniversary of the event.

“I would say so, especially (because) I’m getting near the end of my career,” said Carruthers.

“I don’t know how many more Viterra provincial championships I’m gonna play in. You never know when your last one is. I don’t plan on pulling the pin, but you just never know. So, this is a special one, it’s the hundredth, and very much want to come out as the champion on Sunday and earn another trip to the Brier.”

“I don’t know how many more Viterra provincial championships I’m gonna play in. You never know when your last one is. I don’t plan on pulling the pin, but you just never know.”– Reid Carruthers

Carruthers called his team’s campaign “up and down,” as they qualified for playoffs five times in ten events this year, but expressed the utmost confidence in the group. He said he expects to see his former longtime second Samagalski in a high-stakes contest at some point this week.

“They’re very talented curlers. There’s one thing that I know about Derek is he absolutely loves the men’s championship as much as I do,” Carruthers said. “It’ll be interesting if we get in a big game against him, but I’m looking forward to it.

“Nothing but respect for him, and I wish him well. I’m just not gonna wish him the best on Sunday if I’m playing him.”

Games will be broadcast on the CurlManitoba YouTube channel.

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca