Former Brier champ Menard returns to elite men's curling, PointsBet could be revamped

CALGARY — Jean-Michel Menard is back on the Canadian men's curling stage.

The first francophone skip from Quebec to win a national men's championship has returned this season playing third for Felix Asselin.

Menard defeated Glenn Howard in the 2006 Brier final in Regina and went on to earn a silver medal at the world championship in Lowell, Mass.

He's played 119 games over 11 career Brier appearances, including 10 as a skip.

Menard stepped back from men's curling in 2018 because he didn't want to travel heavily on tour while his two daughters were young.

He continued to play, however, and claimed a Canadian mixed team championship in 2021 with a team that included wife and eight-time provincial women's champ Annie Lemay at lead.

Menard then won the 2022 world mixed championship in Aberdeen, Scotland.

When his former teammate Martin Crete called him in February, the 48-year-old Menard thought it was an invitation to spare in a bonspiel, but it was an offer of a full-time position with Asselin's team.

"I think I still have some shots left in me. Why not give it a try?" Menard said.

"I didn't necessarily want to skip. First thought, they wanted me to hold the broom and Felix throw fourth stones. I said, 'No, you three have been playing together for a long time. Let him skip.'

"I can handle, well, part-time sweeping. Last time I swept was in 2003 for Guy Hemmings."

Menard, from Amos, Que., is Asselin's vice with Crete and Jean-Francois Trepanier on the front end.

Asselin ousted defending champion Reid Carruthers in the first round of the PointsBet Invitiational in Calgary last week — Asselin drew the button to decide a tied game — before losing to eventual champ Mike McEwen in the quarterfinals.

Asselin reached the semifinals of September's AMJ Campbell Shorty Jenkins Classic before falling to eventual champion Yannick Schwaller of Switzerland.

"The way I played gave me confidence I could still compete at that level," Menard said.

Asselin was 11 years old when Menard won the 2006 Brier.

"When we decided to make a move last year and make a team change, there wasn't that many guys we were looking at that had the pedigree and just a level of play that could make us better than what we already were," Asselin said.

"He can definitely help a lot. His experiences in tense moments is where it's going to show."

Menard had once written off a return to the Brier, but another appearance in March in Kelowna, B.C., is possible if Asselin can win Quebec's provincial championship.

"When they gave me a call, I thought, 'Maybe I have a sniff to go back to the Brier,'" Menard said. "Put in the effort and see what happens. So far, I think we have a half-decent chance if we continue playing like that. It looks good."

POINTSBET CHANGES

The quirky PointsBet Invitational that concluded Sunday in Calgary with Mike McEwen and Rachel Homan each picking up early-season cheques of $50,000 could be revamped, says Curling Canada chief executive officer Nolan Thiessen.

The PointsBet's hook is its single-knockout format, and the chance of a national club, junior, college, university or under-25 champion upsetting the top teams in Canada.

That happened in Calgary with Allyson MacNutt's junior team toppling four-time Canadian women's champ Kerri Einarson in the first round. In men's play, Jordan McDonald's under-25 foursome beat Matt Dunstone in the first round and defeated Kevin Koe in the quarterfinals.

However, with the 2025 Olympic trials on the horizon, Thiessen wonders if a cash tournament offering a maximum four games to a team over five days needs to provide more game reps.

"Next year's a really important year with the trials and preparing our teams," Thiessen said in Calgary. "The cool thing that we see here about the win-or-go home single elimination is that, 'Oh my goodness, my event might be over. It's the sixth end and I'm down two and my event might be over.'

"Creating that sense of urgency is a good thing, but also, we want to give our trials teams opportunities on arena ice in preparation for the trials. Are there games to be played so that they have more opportunities? Now is the time to look at it if we want to change something. After three years, you have a sample size."

The fourth edition of the PointsBet returns to Calgary from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, 2025, followed by November's Olympic team trials in Halifax.

Southern Alberta's warm, sunny weather at the end of September wasn't conducive to a large fan turnout at WinSport Arena, which was barely half full during the five-day tournament.

The event served as a platform to launch a ticket-sale campaign for the Dec. 30-Jan. 4 Olympic mixed doubles trials in Liverpool, N.S., said Thiessen.

He added that televised curling early in the season gets people thinking about the sport and provides an interest kick for curling clubs, as well as for the national and world championships later in the season.

"It's a great time of year for a lot of those reasons," he said. "It's a poor time of year from a fan perspective, because we have a short summer in this country, and who wants to (go into an arena) when it's 20 degrees outside?'

"We want bums in the seats. We don't budget and plan for full buildings or best-case scenarios. We know this time of year, it's a struggle.

"It's a convoluted calendar. We work with World Curling and the Slams to try and not step on each other's toes. It would have to be next quad if we ever change the timing of this."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 3, 2024.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press