As the 2025 Montana’s Brier kicks off tonight, a trio of curlers from the Sault are looking to leave their mark on the event.
While they won’t be wearing the colours of Team Northern Ontario, Brad Jacobs, E.J. Harnden, and Ryan Harnden are back at the annual Canadian men’s curling championship for another year, this time at Prospera Place in Kelowna, B.C.
The Harnden brothers reunited this season with Matt Dunstone’s Manitoba-based team.
Ryan Harnden joined Dunstone’s team in 2023 and has curled at a pair of Brier’s with the team, including a silver-medal winning performance in the 2023 tournament in London that saw the Dunstone rink finish with a 10-2 record.
In 2024 in Regina, Team Dunstone finished the event with a 7-3 record.
E.J. Harnden joined the Dunstone rink earlier this season after parting ways with Brad Gushue’s Newfoundland and Labrador-based rink in the fall.
E.J. spent two seasons with the Gushue rink and captured Brier gold both years as the team went 10-1 in 2023 and 9-2 a year ago.
Team Dunstone will open the 2025 tournament tonight against Alberta’s Kevin Koe in the opening draw of the event, scheduled for 9:30 p.m. eastern time.
At the World Men’s Curling Championship, Team Gushue won silver both years after going 11-4 in Ottawa in 2023 and 11-3 last year in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
Jacobs, skipping an Alberta-based team that includes Marc Kennedy at third, Brett Gallant at second, and lead Ben Hebert, competed in last year’s event with Reid Carruthers and skipped the Manitoba-based rink to a 7-3 record.
Team Jacobs came together last spring after Kennedy, Gallant, and Hebert split from former skip Brendan Bottcher.
The team is slated to open the tournament on Saturday afternoon against Team Yukon, skipped by Thomas Scoffin, in Draw 2 at 4:30 p.m. eastern time.
For Jacobs, the 2025 tournament is his 15th appearance in the annual event. The 39-year-old first competed in the tournament in 2007 in Hamilton as third for Al Harnden’s Northern Ontario rink while throwing skip stones.
As teammates competing as Team Northern Ontario, Jacobs, along with E.J. and Ryan, won the tournament in 2013 in Edmonton after going 11-3 and beating Manitoba’s Jeff Stoughton in the final.
The team went on to win silver in the World Men’s Curling Championship in Victoria, B.C. that year as the Canadian representative.
Team Northern Ontario this year is John Epping’s Sudbury-based rink, which includes Jacob Horgan at third, Tanner Horgan at second, and Ian McMillan at lead.
Team Northern Ontario also opens the tournament tonight when they face New Brunswick’s James Grattan.
The Brier runs until March 9.