YORKTON - Saskatchewan curling fans will have a new team – sort of – to cheer for next season.
Veteran skip Mike McEwen will be travelling from Manitoba to assume the same position with what has been the Colton Flasch rink.
Flasch will move into the third position with the front-end duo of brothers Kevin and Dan Marsh.
So, who called who to start the process to become teammates?
“Actually, Colton beat me to the punch,” McEwen told Yorkton This Week. “I was actually planning on texting him. It was on my mind. Flasch just beat me to it.”
It was a case of both McEwen as a skip and Flasch as a team looking at options headed to next season.
McEwen had spent his entire career curling for Manitoba, until this season forming a new Ontario-based squad with veterans Ryan Fry and Brent Laing. Jonathan Beuk began the season as the team's lead before he was replaced by Joey Hart ahead of the Ontario Tankard.
The situation gave McEwen a team, he was the import, but he said it was not an ideal situation.
“Being an import, it was an eye opener,” he said.
With the Ontario team he was dealing with players who were geographically distant.
“Ontario is a big place. They were all over the place, and me being where I was it was difficult . . . It added to the logistical challenges,” said McEwen.
McEwen expects it to be a smoother merge with the Flasch team trio who are all basically neighbours.
“I’m coming into a core group of guys – guys that train on a daily basis. They throw rocks together. That’s just so important,” said McEwen.
The two sides found themselves looking following a pair of announcements.
When Fry announced he was stepping away from the game at the end of the season, it left the future of Team McEwen in doubt.
Meanwhile team Flasch had a season they’d likely hope to forget. The team did not play well at the Saskatchewan playdowns and did not have a high enough ranking on the CTRS to earn a wild-card berth to the Brier.
When team Flasch announced third Catlin Schneider would be leaving the team there was a hole to fill.
So why was McEwen thinking of calling Flasch to fill the hole?
“I think they’re at the right place, the right time in their careers,” said McEwen.
It’s a case where the Flasch rink has enough experience to know what needs to be done to succeed, and some great mentoring on their resume too – Flasch was second for Kevin Koe at one point.
“They have the right work ethic, the training, what needs to be done on a winning team,” said McEwen.
With the new team Flasch steps down from calling the shots as skip. Is that a concern for McEwen in terms of creating some tension?
“I don’t think so,” he said, although he admitted putting two skips together is not always successful. “. . . But I don’t see any hesitation in Colton in what he’s doing.”
McEwen is also rather excited to have Flasch throwing third rocks, suggesting he might be perfect for the role.
“I think it might be his wheelhouse . . . He’s (Flasch) a powerful physical force out there,” he said, adding top teams generally have a third these days who can move granite with big throws. “. . . Having a powerful third is pretty important.”
Certainly, there will be eyes on McEwen as Saskatchewan curling fans hope for a Canadian win, something that has eluded curlers from the province since Rick Folk in 1980.
McEwen has the resume. Curling out of Manitoba he made seven appearances at the Brier from 2016 to 2022.
At the 2023 Tim Hortons Brier in London, Team McEwen posted a 6-2 record in the round-robin and defeated Kevin Koe's Alberta squad in the quarterfinal before losing to Team Brendan Bottcher in the 3 vs. 4-page playoff.
As for pressure in Saskatchewan McEwen said he knows fans bleed green. Then he added, “I don’t know quite what that means yet.”
That the drought goes back to 1980 “is actually pretty crazy given how many active curlers there are in Saskatchewan,” said McEwen.
The new team hopes to change the province’s fortunes.
“Hopefully we’re building something to be in that conversation (to win a Brier),” said McEwen.
