Samagalski excited to represent Manitoba again at the Brier

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This article was published 04/03/2022 (1556 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In his last two trips to the Tim Hortons Brier, Carberry’s Derek Samagalski has donned the Wild Card jacket while competing against the top men’s curling rinks in Canada.

When he and Mike McEwen’s rink from the West St. Paul Curling Club open up their Pool B slate this afternoon in Lethbridge, Alta. against British Columbia’s Brent Pierce, they will do so with the familiar Manitoba colours.

“It’s still a cool feeling to be at the Brier, but there was a different feeling to it when you went there as the Wild Card team,” Samagalski said.

“When you get to the hotel and you see the Manitoba yellow on the jacket and the Buffalo on the back, you get goosebumps. Everyone dreams about playing for a national title and having those colours, and we’re going to try and rock that with pride this week.”

Samagalski’s road to his fifth men’s provincial title — he earned that honour in 2012 with Rob Fowler’s rink, in 2015 and 2018 with Reid Carruthers’ squad and in 2019 with McEwen — might have been his most dramatic.

In what he described as one of the biggest grinds of his curling career, the McEwen rink captured the Viterra Championship on Feb. 13 with an 8-3 triumph over Colton Lott at the Selkirk Curling Club.

“It’s not like we played bad or anything like that, but we just didn’t have our ‘A’ game at times and with the talent level being what it is now in Manitoba, that’s what you have to be at if you want to win,” Samagalski said. “We were fortunate to have a couple of games (against Corey Chambers and Braden Calvert in the playoff round) where we came away with wins when probably should have lost and Mike made a really nice draw at the end of the semifinal against Ryan Wiebe’s team, who pushed us to give everything that we had in that game.

“Once we got to the final, we pretty much went in with the approach to forget everything that happened prior to that and try to put in our best game to win a spot at the Brier. Luckily for us, that ended up being our strongest performance of the weekend.”

Samagalski, McEwen and third Reid Carruthers also found themselves playing as a three-man team during a portion of the provincials as lead Colin Hodgson was forced to the sidelines with a nagging left quad injury.

As a result of the injury and a positive COVID-19 test in the lead-up to the Brier, Hodgson did not make the trip out to Lethbridge.

Lott, who had previously been announced as the alternate, will step into the lead role this week and Kyle Doering will now serve as the fifth player.

“It’s been a really hectic last three weeks around here,” Samagalski said. “Not only did our team get hit with COVID like some of the other guys did after the provincials in Selkirk, but we were all checking in with Colin to see how he was doing.

“It’s certainly going to be different without him there and it’ll take a little bit to get used to playing with Colton, especially since Colin and I both sweep a certain way. With that said, Colton’s one of the best young curlers in the world right now and I think he’ll fit in fine with our team.”

With just three playoff spots available in each pool during this year’s Brier, the margin for error is even less than usual, especially with another stout 18-team field on display.

In addition to Manitoba and British Columbia, Pool B also features Northern Ontario (Brad Jacobs), Northwest Territories (Jamie Koe), Nova Scotia (Paul Flemming), Nunavut (Peter Mackey), Quebec (Mike Fournier), Wild Card 1 (Brad Gushue) and Wild Card 3 (Jason Gunnlaugson).

Pool A consists of Alberta (Kevin Koe), New Brunswick (James Grattan), Newfoundland and Labrador (Nathan Young), Ontario (Glenn Howard), Prince Edward Island (Tyler Smith), Saskatchewan (Colton Flasch), Team Canada (Brendan Bottcher), Wild Card 2 (Matt Dunstone) and Yukon (Thomas Scoffin).

“You could make the argument that John Epping’s team is the only one among the top 10 in Canada that’s not going to be there,” Samagalski said. “There’s so many good teams that can win the Brier and the other provinces are getting really tough to beat as they are playing in more events. I think you are going to see something similar to the Scotties in Thunder Bay last month where there were a couple of surprises and upsets.

“It’s going to be a long week and our approach is to try and chip away one game at a time. If you lose your first game or two, there’s still enough time to get on a bit of a role and get one of the six playoff spots.”

What Samagalski is looking forward to the most though from this week’s event is the fact that there will again be fans in the stands for the Brier after it was held in a bubble last year in Calgary.

“That was an awesome experience but it just wasn’t the same,” Samagalski said. “You could hear guys sneezing out on the ice, which you never see happen at a normal event when you got the fans cheering you on at all times.

“We’re all going to have some fun as we soak up the Brier experience again. You never know if you are going to get back here, so we’re going to cherish it.”

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