Rylan Kleiter wins first Saskatchewan men’s curling championship

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Rylan Kleiter and his Saskatoon team have claimed the Saskatchewan men’s curling championship.

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After losing in the provincial final last year, Kleiter’s Nutana Curling Club foursome beat Steve Laycock and his Swift Current rink 8-5 on Sunday night in Kindersley to claim the 2025 SaskTel Tankard and the right to represent Saskatchewan at the Montana’s Brier in Kelowna, B.C. from Feb. 28 to March 9.

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It will be the first trip to the Brier for the 26-year-old Kleiter, a four-time provincial junior champion, third Joshua Mattern, second Matthew Hall and lead Trevor Johnson. Their coach, Dean Kleiter, represented Saskatchewan twice as an alternate in 2001 and 2003.

Team Kleiter will be one of two Saskatchewan-based teams at the event as Team Mike McEwen, who lost in the Brier final last year to Brad Gushue, has pre-qualified for the national championship.

As for their road to the provincial championship, Kleiter and company finished the round robin as the third seed with a 5-3 record. The group beat Regina’s Team Kelly Knapp in the page 3-4 playoff game on Saturday night before getting by Saskatoon’s Team Dustin Kalthoff on Sunday morning in the semifinal.

That set up a rematch in the championship game against Laycock, who beat Kleiter 7-6 on Thursday in the round robin on his way to claiming the No. 1 seed with a 7-1 record before beating Kalthoff in the 1-2 page playoff game.

Last year, Kleiter beat Laycock in the 3-4 page playoff game before losing to McEwen in the final.

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This year, it was the Kleiter once again getting the best of Team Laycock, also featuring third Shaun Meachem, second Chris Haichert and lead Brayden Grindheim.

After Laycock opened the scoring with a single point in the first end, the teams blanked the second end before Kleiter broke the game open in the third by scoring three points to take the 3-1 lead.

Laycock scored a single in the fourth before Kleiter took a commanding lead with another three-point end in the fifth to go up 6-2.

Laycock responded with one in the sixth before Kleiter scored a deuce in the seventh to increase the lead to 8-2.

After Laycock scored two points of his own in the eighth to make it 8-4, Kleiter and his team just tried to run Laycock out of rocks in the ninth end but ended up giving up a steal of one to make it 8-5.

And in the tenth, Kleiter and company played a clean end, once again running Laycock out of rocks, to win his first SaskTel Tankard.

Meanwhile in the women’s provincial final, after being the runner-up in 2023 and 2024, Nancy Martin and her squad were finally able to claim the Viterra Prairie Pinnacle with a 9-7 win in the championship game in Kindersley over Jolene Campbell and her Regina rink.

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Martin and her Saskatoon Nutana Curling Club squad — featuring third Chaelynn Stewart, second Kadriana Lott, lead Deanna Doig and alternate Colleen Ackerman — will now wear the green jacket as Team Saskatchewan at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts from Feb. 14-23 in Thunder Bay, Ont.

Also on Sunday, CurlSask announced that Melville will host the 2026 SaskTel Tankard and Viterra Prairie Pinnacle in a similar joint format to the 2025 championship with both the men’s and women’s events being held at the same time.

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