Manitoba’s Team Carruthers lands new third in Catlin Schneider

One of Manitoba’s top-ranked men’s curling teams made a new addition on Friday.

Team Reid Carruthers announced Saskatchewan’s Catlin Schneider is joining the Manitoba-based rink to be their new third.

Schneider joins Carruthers, second Derek Samagalski, and lead Connor Njegovan. He replaces Brad Jacobs who recently jumped ship.

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The 32-year-old Schneider has made four Brier appearances and just skipped Team British Columbia at the 2024 Brier where they finished with a 4-4 record, while handing Carruthers his only loss in pool play.

“Their team decided to part ways,” said Carruthers. “So he was kinda like sitting there as a free agent. A lot of the teams, players have already been accounted for. And as far as free agents go, he was one of the best ones definitely sitting waiting in the wings.

“We took a long while to decide what route we were gonna go and with Catlin, we’re getting a guy that really wants to play third. He’s excited. He’s motivated. He’s in great shape, works really hard.”

Schneider will be curling out of a third different province in the span of just three years. Carruthers is returning to the skip position after just going back to third last December.

Carruthers admitted there was some frustration with Jacobs bailing on the team midway through the Olympic cycle as they felt they were just building some momentum.

The 39-year-old Carruthers had to contemplate his own curling future before making Friday’s addition.

“To be honest, when Brad first left the team, obviously we were all gutted about it,” said Carruthers. “But there’s no hard feeling there. But myself, I’m kinda nearing the end of my curling career and I had to take a few days myself to just to see if I was wanting to continue on.

“There’s no quit in this guy. There’s no quit in my teammates either. There’s two years left in the Olympic quadrennial. It was my goal to play out this entire quad and then kinda assess my future at that point.”

Carruthers won his eighth career provincial men’s title earlier this year.