‘Where I’m meant to be’: Mike McEwen speaks on former team’s split, joining Kleiter rink

Mike McEwen isn’t ready to slow down in his curling career.

After a whirlwind week, McEwen is now the skip of the former Rylan Kleiter rink, staying in Saskatchewan after being dropped by his former teammates Colton Flasch, Kevin Marsh and Daniel Marsh.

Read more:

• Mike McEwen parts ways with Sask. rink after three seasons
• Sask. curler Colton Flasch explains decision to move on from skip Mike McEwen
• Mike McEwen, Kelly Knapp rinks fall short of playoffs at Brier

According to Flasch, the move was made shortly after the 2026 Brier in St. John’s, N.L. where Team McEwen failed to move past the pool stage. Adding Tyler Tardi as their new skip, Flasch said the decision to part ways with the 45-year-old McEwen came in an effort to get younger curlers on the team ahead of the next Olympic cycle.

McEwen didn’t have to wait long to find his new spot, as the team of Kleiter, Joshua Mattern and Trevor Johnson added the veteran skip following the departure of Matthew Hall.

On Thursday, McEwen joined The Green Zone to discuss his exit from his previous team and linking up with the former Kleiter rink.

Listen to the full interview with McEwen or read the transcript below:

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

THE GREEN ZONE: You posted a clip of the Wolf of Wall Street on your social media. Does that mimic how fired up you are to stay in Saskatchewan with Rylan Kleiter?

MIKE McEWEN: Yeah. You know what? I tried to have some fun with it, but yeah that’s how I feel.

How are the knees, old man?

McEWEN: You know, they’re good. I still have lots of work to do this off-season. They took a bit of a hit a week ago, I’m OK though. Like that Wolf of Wall Street clip – I’m trying my best to bleed green, so I’m loving Saskatchewan.

How did this all go down with your exit from Colton Flasch and the Marsh twins?

McEWEN: It was right at the end of the Brier on Sunday night. Got a heads up that they had a tough decision to make. You appreciate the transparency, but that was a rough 48 hours while your potential replacements are being interviewed. Tuesday I got the unfortunate news, and then two days later, on Thursday, everybody would have seen the post that I was no longer with the team. That was kind of a whirlwind week for me, just had to digest things on the go and figure out what opportunities where there for me to continue on the ice.

How quickly did your phone start ringing?

McEWEN: Immediately. I thought there would be texts, calls and things like that, but it blew me away. A lot of people didn’t see this coming, and neither did I, really. I probably missed a couple signs and maybe miscalculated a little bit. I knew there would be changes this year, but I thought there might be more significant changes in 12 months from now. I still think there was something untapped, and I was optimistic that we would give it one more shot to see if we could really untap the full potential, so yeah, really good response.

I leaned into some people that I really trust and value. Having a great conversation with Jennifer Jones, Pat Simmons, these are just some amazing people. To hear their experiences later in their career taking on a young team, David Murdoch did something similar in Scotland. I talked to Nolan Thiessen, I talked to Reid Carruthers, a long list of people that really helped me reflect on a fast-forward kind of timeline. As I navigated this and started talking to Rylan Kleiter and the guys, I needed to get to a place, emotionally, where I could actually make a very good decision and not do something reactive.

You get on the horn with Rylan ,who is one of the up and coming skips, not only in our province, but in Canada. How excited are you to join in a young group of curlers who are pretty serious about getting to that next level?

McEWEN: What’s our average age? Did I undercut Team Tardi? On average age, I got three 28-year-olds now.

All of a sudden you’re way younger now. It’s like (Team Tardi) wanted to go younger, and Rylan’s like, “I don’t care. Let’s bring on Mike,” with a bunch of 20-somethings coming up.

McEWEN: Yeah, take that, Tardi-Flasch. But seriously, we’ve been watching these guys for a few years now. Josh (Mattern) and Trevor (Johnson) are tremendous sweepers, like oh are they good. I’m excited for that strength and youthful energy that’s there. Rylan carries himself really well. I had a good sense of maybe who he is as a leader just from the outside looking in, and then I was able to confirm those things. I had great chats with people who know that team, Pat Simmons, and then my initial chat with those guys.

These are great athletes, great people, and they’re on the edge of doing something. Where is their ceiling? We don’t know yet. They’ve been to a Brier, they’ve been to (Olympic trials), they played in multiple grand slams. I was in the right place at the right time where they were looking for something missing. How do we get to the next level? They’re looking for experience and I’m available. This is where I’m meant to be. This is supposed to happen. This is the next chapter, so I’m excited.

How interesting will the Tankard be, with all the guys that are involved and the types of personalities? It could be pretty fiery on the ice.

McEWEN: Right now, what I’m dreaming about is a Saskatchewan-versus-Saskatchewan battle in Saskatoon at the 100th Brier. It’s looking like as long as things stay as they are that Flasch, the Marsh brothers and Tardi will get a wild-card spot into the Brier. We’ll have to do our job to win the Tankard, but we could have two Saskatchewan teams at the Brier. Oh, do I want to be in that (Saskatchewan-versus-Saskatchewan) game at the Brier. If that lines up, that sounds dreamy to me.

How much truth is there in what Russ Howard says about just trying to get to the Brier over and over again, and how important experience is once you get there?

McEWEN: There’s some truth to what he’s saying, geographically depending on where you grew up and played. Obviously I had tons of issues getting out of Manitoba for many years under that era of (Jeff) Stoughton domination, and there’s other provinces that have similar themes. The amount of commitment that the teams need to have to go out, travel, go out on tour and play against better teams is just more and more elevated every year.

I’ve been fortunate coming to Saskatchewan playing with Flasch, the Marsh brothers and now heading into my new chapter with Team Kleiter. The community support in Saskatchewan is tremendous. If I can even play a pivotal role in helping some young guys that are 28 right now, and I can play a pivotal role in something really meaningful in their career – because they could play for another 12-plus years – that sounds pretty exciting to me. Saskatchewan is a great place to do it because of the really good community support that your province has for curling.

We were watching the Olympics and Sweden, the bad boys of curling, the blown rocks, all that conversation goes down. We came to the conclusion that it might be good for curling. What are your thoughts on that?

McEWEN: Maybe it was staged, probably not.

I don’t know if you can stage that with Marc Kennedy. That was raw.

McEWEN: Probably not. That’s what I was thinking. When I’m watching this go down, and for better or worse, there’s some players who double down on it. It blew up. It was the story of the Olympics. I don’t know how it’s not good for curling. This is perfect. They’re launching Rock League in a few weeks in Toronto. We’ve got a very different-looking grand slam season next year, and then further expansion of the Rock League in January 2027. Perfect storm, I hope. I hope this really helps curling get its next leg, and just expands the curling story. I thought it was all good, despite what I’m sure is very difficult for some of the players to deal with. Maybe stay off social media, don’t read all the comments. If you’re Marc Kennedy, you don’t.

Mike, congrats on the new team and we’re excited to see what happens in the 2026-27 season.

McEWEN: I’m very excited. I’m going to pour everything I’ve got into this, and I think we’re going to do great things as we go forward.

I think you’re going to be scary this year.

McEWEN: I hope so.