The defending champion is the number one seed for the 2016 Viterra Provincial Men's Curling Championship which begins next Wednesday in Selkirk.

“It's an honour,” said Reid Carruthers who along with third Braeden Moskowy, second Derek Samagalski and lead Colin Hodgson, captured the 2015 title in Brandon. “I was kind of thinking after watching (Matt) Dunstone on the weekend that they may redo the seeds and put him one. We were three last year and managed to win and there's been years before where we weren't the number one seed. It's an honour to be named it by my peers but there are so many good teams in this field.”

The 32 teams in the field had their say as to who the top five seeds should be and that process was done before Matt Dunstone won his second Canadian Junior Men's Curling Championship this past Sunday in Stratford, Ontario.

Still...Carruthers, Moskowy, Samagalski and Hodgson were the obvious choice to be placed on the top rung and the West St. Paul skip believes his team has a great opportunity in front of them.

“It's just not putting too much pressure on ourselves,” explained Carruthers at CurlManitoba's news conference Thursday in downtown Winnipeg to announce the top five seeds and the draw for the 2016 Viterra Championship. “I could worry about all the other teams that I got to play but to be honest we've been working hard at practice and focusing of what we need to do and I think if we do that I like our chances.”

The second seed belongs to the team that was second best in 2015.

Mike McEwen leads the World Curling Tour's Order of Merit and is third on the money list having earned just over $86,000 this season.

McEwen has lost five finals since 2010 and third B.J. Neufeld says it's no secret how the team, which includes second Matt Wozniak and lead Denni Neufeld, can finally break through, win their first Manitoba Men's title and represent our province at the Brier.

“We have to come up with our best when it matters most,” said Neufeld. “I feel like our preparations coming into this have been really, really good. It's been a little different and I think it gives us some comfort going into this event that we have done the right things to come out on top in the end.”

William Lyburn of the Granite is the third seed followed by East St. Paul's Daley Peters and Alex Forrest.

Murray Woodward, James Kirkness, Devin McArthur and Chad Barkman of the St. Adolphe Curling Club will play their opener against Terry McNamee of Brandon.

Rylan Young, Scott Podolsky, Curtis Joyal and Phil Cook of Springfield will meet David Bohn of the Granite.