2025 Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials begin Saturday in Halifax

It’s the event Canadian curling teams have been training for, dreaming about, and fixating on for the better part of the past four years, and it finally gets underway this coming weekend.

The 2025 Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials, presented by Connect Hearing, kick off Saturday with the first draw at 2 p.m. (all times Atlantic) at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax.

The Trials will decide the women’s and men’s four-player curling teams that will be nominated to the Canadian Olympic Committee to represent Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, Italy.

Eight women’s and eight men’s teams will be participating, including Olympic gold-medallists and world champions.

On the men’s side, reigning Montana’s Brier champion Team Brad Jacobs of Calgary features an abundance of Olympic podiums, including Jacobs, who won gold as Team Canada’s skip in 2014, along with 2010 gold-medallists vice-skip Marc Kennedy and lead Ben Hebert, while second Brett Gallant was a bronze-medallist in 2022.

Team Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L., meanwhile features 2006 gold-medallists and 2022 bronze-medallists Gushue and vice-skip Mark Nichols, along with lead Geoff Walker, who won bronze in 2022.

Team Matt Dunstone of Winnipeg has the 2014 gold-medal winning front end of second E.J. Harnden and lead Ryan Harnden.

Also in the men’s field are Team John Epping of Sudbury, Ont., Team Rylan Kleiter of Saskatoon, Team Kevin Koe of Calgary, Team Jordon McDonald of Winnipeg and Team Mike McEwen of Saskatoon.

The women’s field is headed by two-time reigning Canadian and world champions Team Rachel Homan of Ottawa, while two-time Olympic gold-medallist (2014 in four-player, 2018 in mixed doubles) Kaitlyn Lawes will be throwing fourth stones for her team from Winnipeg, skipped by Selena Njegovan.

The women’s field is rounded out by hometown hopefuls Team Christina Black of Halifax, Team Corryn Brown of Kamloops, B.C., Team Kate Cameron of St. Adolphe, Man., Team Kerri Einarson of Gimli, Man., Team Kayla Skrlik of Calgary and Team Selena Sturmay of Edmonton.

The Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials will use the same format that debuted at the recent Home Hardware Pre-Trials in Wolfville, N.S., where Teams McDonald and Sturmay earned the final berths into the Trials field.

The teams will play a round-robin draw beginning Saturday and running through to Wednesday, Nov. 26. The top three teams will make the playoffs, with the first-place team advancing directly to a best-of-three final.

The second- and third-place teams will meet in the semifinals on Thursday, Nov. 27, with the women playing at 1 p.m. and the men at 7 p.m.

The semifinal winner moves into the best-of-three finals, which begin on Friday, Nov. 28, with the women playing at 1 p.m. and the men at 7:30 p.m.

Game 2 of the finals will take place Saturday, Nov. 29 — women at 1 p.m., and the men at 7 p.m. Game 3, if necessary, would be played Sunday, Nov. 30, with the women on the ice at 1 p.m. and the men at 7 p.m.

Tickets are available online at Ticketmaster or curling.ca/tickets or by calling 902-451-1221 or toll-free 1-877-451-1221. For in-person sales, the Scotiabank Centre Box Office windows are open on event days approximately 90 minutes prior to events.

It will be the eighth edition of the Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials since curling was brought back as an official medal sport for the 1998 Winter Games at Nagano, Japan, and the second time the event has been played in Halifax. Previous editions were staged in 1997 at Brandon, Man., 2001 at Regina, 2005 at Halifax, 2009 at Edmonton, 2013 in Winnipeg, 2017 in Ottawa, and 2021 in Saskatoon.

TSN/RDS2, the official broadcast partner of Curling Canada’s Season of Champions, will provide complete coverage of the Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials. CLICK HERE for the broadcast schedule.

For ticket information, team lineups and the schedule, go to the event website: www.curling.ca/2025trials/