The top men's curlers in the province are in Estevan this week for the SaskTel Tankard. Sixteen teams are hoping to win the green jackets and represent Saskatchewan at the 2018 Tim Horton’s Brier here in Regina.

Reigning Tankard champions Team Casey are back for another year, hoping to qualify for the 2018 Tim Hortons Brier. Skip, Adam Casey, expects his team to perform well after defeating team Laycock in 2017. He believes the experience at last year’s Brier helped prepare the team for this year’s provincial event.

"I’m a little bit more probably even keel and I think, even just last year at the provincials, it was tough to get out, and we beat some good teams. I was so happy with the way we played. So I think that really proved a lot to us and how we can play and hopefully just kind of carry forward and build into that this year,” Adam Casey, defending tankard champion said.

The team has gone through some changes since 2017, adding Brock Montgomery to the third position.

"It’s an easy going team. The first couple events it was just trying to get a feel for how Adam calls the game, and how they do things. But like a said, i played with dusty many years, so it was an easy transition for the most part,” team Casey third brock Montgomery said.

"Brock is one of the best team guys I’ve ever played with. He's a great guy to be around. He's throwing it real well. And it might have taken us a few weeks to get things going, but I would say we're at a better spot coming in than we were last year,” said Casey.

Practice can be tough for the reigning champions though, since Casey lives in Prince Edward Island. But even without having a lot of full team practices, Montgomery is comfortable believing in his skip.

"It is hard, mainly because of obviously practicing; you got to be disciplined enough to practice by yourself and commit to that,” said Montgomery. "You definitely feel the confidence in him and the way he calls the game and the shots he calls for himself. Some of them i wouldn't be too excited playing, but he just seems to do it with ease."

The 2018 SaskTel tankard runs Jan. 31 to Feb. 4 in Estevan.