Dunstone off to hot start at SaskTel Tankard

Matt Dunstone’s rink out of Regina’s Highland Curling Club is locked in on representing the province again at the Tim Hortons Brier.

Dunstone has skipped his team to the last two provincial men’s curling championships and has gone on to make the playoffs in both Brier championships.

This year won’t be very easy, though.

The 12-team field at the SaskTel Tankard in Whitewood features one of the deepest pools of talent that comes to memory for Dunstone.

“(The field is) super deep, especially with the 12 teams,” Dunstone said.

Three Saskatchewan rinks entered the Tankard inside the top 15 in the Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS).

Dunstone ranks in the sixth spot, while Colton Flasch’s rink out of Saskatoon’s Nutana Curling Club holds the 10th spot. Kody Hartung’s rink currently ranks 12th in the country.

One of the biggest differences for Dunstone’s rink is it has its full roster back. Third Braeden Moskowy was forced to miss the 2021 Olympic trials in November for personal reasons.

Dunstone says having Moskowy back adds a huge element to the squad.

“He’s just the heartbeat of this team,” Dunstone said. “He’s a leader out there and we rely on him for a lot. Obviously, we missed that the last couple months here.”

Dunstone’s rink is off to a hot start in Whitewood. After a 6-5 comeback win over Rylan Kleiter’s rink out of the Sutherland Curling Club, Dunstone posted a dominating 10-2 victory over Shaun Meachem from the Swift Current Curling Club.

“We pretty much took all of December off there,” Dunstone said. “We were all pretty gassed there from the trials.

“(We) started practising again in January and were in Regina for almost two weeks. We’ve been putting together quite a bit of practice and it feels like normal.”

The defending champions are to play Flasch’s team in the A Event final Friday afternoon.