Veteran skip Carruthers pulls out of Olympic curling pre-trials to focus on coaching

The Canadian Press

· Posted: Jun 25, 2025 1:13 PM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours ago

Team Reid Carruthers plans to instrumentality with the aforesaid four-player lineup adjacent season, but the rink's absorption volition beryllium connected the 2025-26 run and not connected qualifying for the Winter Olympics.

The Winnipeg-based squad has pulled retired of the Oct. 20-26 Home Hardware Pre-Trials and been replaced by Team Jayden King, Curling Canada said Wednesday.

Carruthers volition play the regular cashspiel play and purpose to instrumentality to the Montana's Brier. He'll besides prioritize coaching duties with Team Kerri Einarson, a Gimli, Man.-based rink that has already qualified for the Nov. 22-30 Montana's Canadian Curling Trials.

The winners of the Pre-Trials volition beforehand to the main Trials, which volition find the Canadian entries for the 2026 Milan Olympics successful February.

"It benignant of came down to a prime of coaching oregon not coaching, and it's thing I inactive wanted to do," Carruthers said of the "tough decision" to withdraw. "The lone mode to bash some this twelvemonth — being a precise important twelvemonth - was to bounds my ain curling play."

The 40-year-old Carruthers, who won nationalist and satellite titles successful 2011 with Jeff Stoughton, guided his squad of vice B.J. Neufeld, 2nd Catlin Schneider and pb Connor Njegovan to a Manitoba rubric past winter.

The foursome went 6-2 successful round-robin play astatine the Brier earlier falling successful the Page Playoff 3-4 crippled to Alberta's Brad Jacobs, who went connected to triumph the nationalist title.

The 2025-26 play calendar is simply a engaged 1 with the Pre-Trials, Trials, Olympics, 5 Grand Slams, regular circuit events and the caller nonrecreational Rock League opening successful April.

In the lawsuit of docket conflicts owed to coaching plans, Carruthers said his squad whitethorn grow if needed.

"We're inactive trying to fig retired what that would look similar successful definite scenarios," helium said from Winnipeg. "But apt it would impact expanding our roster to astatine slightest person 1 much idiosyncratic progressive and astir having similar a squad of five."

The squad has yet to finalize its upcoming schedule.

As for Einarson's rink, Carruthers said the squad has been holding regular off-ice readying meetings and has scheduled a grooming campy successful August.

Second Shannon Birchard missed astir of past play with a genu wounded but is expected to instrumentality erstwhile the caller run begins successful precocious summer.

"The thought would beryllium to person her backmost successful the lineup astatine the start," Carruthers said. "So we're not 100 per cent definite astatine this point. But coming backmost from injury, she's moving hard to get it backmost and going."

The squad besides includes vice Val Sweeting and pb Krysten Karwacki. Karlee Burgess served arsenic an wounded replacement for Birchard implicit the 2nd fractional of past season.

Also Wednesday, Curling Canada announced the gully schedules for some the Pre-Trials and the main Trials. King, from London, Ont., filled the Pre-Trials vacancy arsenic the highest-ranked rink that had yet to qualify.