Carruthers on Western Swing

Winnipeg's Reid Carruthers (photo: Michael Burns, Curling Canada) opens plays today at the Hack2House ACS Men's Major in Beaumont. Catlin Schneider joins Carruthers, added to the lineup as a replacement for Brad Jacobs, with Derek Samalgalski and Connor Njegovan continuing on the front end. Jacobs joined Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Marc Kennedy in Calgary. Schneider joined the team after skipping his own squad out of Victoria, BC, last season, with Sterling Middleton, Jason Ginter and Alex Horwath, and going on to win the BC title. The Hack2House ACS Men's Major is the first event of the Alberta Curling Series, with 9 more events planning through the fall calendar schedule. All events take places at the Beaumont Curling Club, about 45 minutes southeast of Edmonton. All games are streamed free through CurlingZone and the Alberta Curling Series Youtube channels by Curling Stadium. In the 18-team triple knockout field, Carruthers received a first-round bye, with their challenger, Anton Hood of New Zealand, winning 5-2 over Edmonton's Andrew Dunbar on Thursday evening to earn that spot. Game 1: Carruthers vs. Hood Hood, winner of the New Zealand National Championship this summer, making it two years in a row for the Naseby foursome, will spend the next two months in Canada. Carruthers opened the year ranked #11 on the World Curling Team Rankings, slightly behind Kevin Koe as the 5th-ranked Canadian team. Carruthers first event of their season was weekend at the Saville Shootout in Edmonton, reaching the semifinals. Carruthers earned 21.3 world ranking points for the result, moving them up a spot into 10th overall going into this weekend. Knockout bracket play continues through the weekend with the 8-team quarterfinals going Sunday at 9 am Mountain Time (MT). The championship final follows at 3 pm.