On the rise: Young gun Brendan Bottcher takes aim at Alberta curling title and a berth in The Brier

“You’re gonna see some new faces at the Brier this year, I would gamble," says Brendan Bottcher, a few days after returning from a most successful overseas curling trip. "I’m hoping one of those is ours.”

The 23-year-old skip is speaking just a few days after his team's return from a trip to Hamburg, where they ran up a 7 and oh record on the way to winning the German Masters. In the round-robin portion of that tournament, they beat Scotland's David Murdoch, 6-3. In the final, they dispatched Switzerland's Sven Michel, 6-2.

Bottcher is brimming with confidence. Alberta's "Next One" might well be on the verge of really making his mark.

In a breakthrough season, the Hamburg win serves to illustrate even more that Bottcher's hopes of a Brier appearance are near-fetched, not far. That he will lead his team to an Alberta championship when the province's men gather in Wainwright, next week, to settle the matter, is being predicted by some outright. Most others agree that if it were to happen, it "wouldn't surprise" them.

With two Grand Slam semi-final finishes, the win in Germany and a September tour victory under their belts, Bottcher and his mates - lead Karrick Martin, second Brad Thiessen and vice Tom Appelman - do not come into the Alberta championship as an afterthought. If it is expected that they, as the second seed behind Team Kevin Koe, are to be right there when the title game comes around, that's just fine with Bottcher. He has the same expectation.

“I don’t think it’s bold to say we wanna win and I don’t have a hard time saying that," replies the 2012 World Junior and Canadian University champ, when asked about goal setting for Wainwright. "I honestly believe that if we just go there and take it one shot at a time, one game at a time, that we are going to win. It’s going to take us playing well and I have the confidence that we’re gonna do that.”

There's no cockiness in Bottcher's voice, but rather the quiet confidence that comes when work meets result, and the momentum is palpable. “Our success rate against the top teams has been much higher, this year, than it has ever been in the past,” he says, pointing to hard work and a line-up adjustment as keys to the surge.

In both the 2013 and 2014 Alberta championships, Bottcher skipped teams that went 1 and 3 in the triple-knockout format, leaving early as Koe and Kevin Martin ended up battling in the finals. Bottcher's teams didn't even make it to the semi's. The learning curve from juniors to the big time was a steep one. “It’s taken a while,” he says of the adjustment.

“The gap between junior curling and men’s curling is just huge," explains Bottcher, admitting that he struggled in transitioning from a time when he couldn't lose to one when those victories were much, much harder to come by. "Even tactically and the types of shots you have to play to be successful is quite a bit different."

"You need all four people to be throwing well. You need to be playing the right shots. You just need to be a lot smarter,” he says, adding that in the junior ranks, a skip can often win games all by himself. That a team can show up and wait for the opposition to mistake their way to a loss. Not so much at the senior level.

With two disappointing Alberta runs in the books, Team Bottcher decided a change was in order. It's one that seems to be paying big dividends in 2014-15. One that has injected the young squad (Martin is 25, Thiessen is 24) with a little more experience.

Late last season, Appelman climbed aboard as the team's third, replacing Mick Lizmore, who'd won the Canadian University Championship with Bottcher two years prior.

At 32 years old, Appelman had already been through a few senior level curling wars and his perspective was just what the doctor ordered.

“He’s been awesome," Bottcher says of Appelman. "Besides being one of the easiest people to get along with, he is a great curler. He’s got an extra ten years on me, so he’s got a little bit of experience and he’s been there, done that a little bit. That’s all a bonus.”

“We have the right group of guys, now," he continues. "We’re doing all the right things. We’re practicing the right way. We’re doing everything we need to do and it’s paying off for us a little bit.”

With Canadian Curling Association coach Rob Krepps guiding the foursome - "We have one of the best coaches that’s around," says Bottcher - the crew from Edmonton's Saville Centre has enjoyed more success this season. With that has come more notoriety. Curling fans in Alberta were already well aware of the Bottcher team's collective pedigree and bright future. Now, their names are more familiar outside the province.

“Once we made that first Slam semi in Sault Ste. Marie (losing to Olympic champion Brad Jacobs), I think we turned a lot of heads there," Bottcher says. "To follow that up in Yorkton and make another Slam semi - and, personally, I think we played quite a bit better in Yorkton - then I really knew we had something."

That something is about to get tested at provincials. After a couple of bumpy rides, expectations are much loftier in 2015. Sportsnet commentator and retired skip Kevin Martin (and father of Team Bottcher lead, Karrick) weighs in via email:

When the new rankings are released this week, Team Bottcher will hold down 11th spot in the world (9th among Canadian men's teams) when it comes to the World Curling Tour's Order of Merit year-to-date standings.

Bottcher feels much more ready to compete for the Alberta crown than he did in 2013 or 2014. The trip to Germany was meant to be a part of the preparation, giving his rink something it did not have in the previous two years; a high level tournament so close to provincials. Sharpening up for Wainwright was the chief mission. The team was fully prepared that the near $7,000.00 it cost to fly over and take part in the competition would be covered by a combination of already banked season winnings and sponsorship cash. Winning the thing and almost breaking even with the prize money?  Gravy.

“We went into it with lower expectations, admits Bottcher. "We hadn’t played in a month and a half. We were mostly using it as preparation for leading up to provincials. But, we got on a roll and got back to our form from before Christmas and it all worked out for us.”

If it continues to work out, Bottcher's face might be one of the new ones at this year's Brier, in Calgary. But there are no chickens being counted here. With Martin's retirement, an outsider might conclude that only Koe's revamped team stands in Bottcher's way. He cautions against that, though. It is, after all, Alberta.

“There’s a lot of good teams. We haven’t really lost any of the other depth. If anything, there’s a couple of teams that have come up and are playing really well this year and I think our team is one of those teams.”

“This year, more than the last couple, I just feel ready," he says, comfortably. "If we can just keep doing the things we have been doing this year, we’ll be fine.”