The chutes open to launch the 2025 PBR Canada Cup Series next month at Westerner Park in Red Deer.
Veteran Bullfighter Brett Monea from Carstairs is back for another season. He says “for me that has been the question lately. They say I’m 40 years old and people ask me about retirement. When I first started this sport I had a friend tell me like ‘you don’t have what it takes to do it’. My response to everything in my mind is ‘I’ll show you’. I’ve showed it since then until I’m 40 and then when people are saying ‘are you thinking about retirement. Are you getting to old?’. Again, it just fuels my fire. I’m just going to show you again. I can fight circles around these younger guys and that’s just what drives me is that mental attitude for myself.”
He has been to about 13 PBR Canada Finals during his career.
Tickets for all of the exhilarating 8-second bull rides and wrecks at the PBR Red Deer Classic at the Peavey Mart Centrium on February 1st at 7pm are available online via ticketsalberta.com. He says “yeah, Red Deer is a great venue. The atmosphere is awesome. Kind of a chance to see everybody for the first time since November. You know, just talk about Christmas, what they did over the holidays. It’s kind of like a big reunion. I always look forward to the first one back. Get to see the people but I get to see the bulls too that I haven’t had to see for a while. I’m excited to see how they perform and some of the younger bulls that are just jumping onto the stage and see what we have to fight with all summer. So, yeah, really looking forward to it.”
Monea and some of the top bull riders and bullfighters in the industry will be in Olds later this week for a hot stove conversation. He started going to practice pens at Olds College in 2001 when he was 17 years old. Monea says “Olds has been great to me and to go back here this coming Thursday to hopefully get that young crowd of college students or locals that want to maybe just learn about bullfighting is a huge honour for me to get back there because the sport has given me and my family a lot. It’s a sporting attraction that’s second to none in my opinion when you’ve got a 150 pound human trying to ride an 1,800 pound bovine. There’s going to be chaos involved, there is going to be some great rides involved.”
The first annual Lammle’s PBR Meet and Greet is free event which will run from 6 until 8pm on Thursday, January 16th at the Crossing Pub & Restaurant on the Olds College campus.
