As one season ended and another began, professional bull-riders gathered in Lloydminster last weekend for the PBR Winter Classic indoors at the Ex.
Read more: Coverchuk bucks up at Lloyd PBR
On a seasonably warm November night, a sellout crowd greeted the cowboys Saturday, just one week after the PBR Canada National Finals in Edmonton.
“It was a good night,” veteran bull-rider Dakota Buttar said after the Lloyd show. “I’m glad it wasn’t too cold outside, so it wasn’t too miserable for us in the back there. It was actually enjoyable.”
It was Buttar’s first Border City appearance since he won the event in 2019.
“Quite a few years, I’ve been hurt after the (PBR) Finals, so I had to heal up,” said the two-time PBR Canada champion. “This year, I finally felt good after finals, so I was excited to come and get the new season underway already.”
Buttar, 33, made the three-hour drive from his native Kindersley, Sask., on Saturday and fashioned a successful ride in the long-go, scoring an 84 in front of hundreds of fans who packed the grandstands and hospitality tables.
“It’s pretty cool how everything is so close,” Buttar said about the intimate Lloyd Ex setting. “All the seats and spectators are kind of on top of you, so it makes it fun.”
On a night that brought together past and future stars of the bull-riding circle, young gun Jeremy Maisonneuve of Val-des-Monts, Que., was the overall champion in a distinguished field that included wily veterans like Buttar, Aaron Roy, Cody Coverchuk and Nick Tetz, the second-place finisher Saturday.
Maisonneuve, just 18, is coming off a season for the ages in the Bull Riders Canada (BRC) circuit.
Another up-and-comer, Marshall Senger of Meadow Lake, Sask., also had a standout year at the BRC level and the 20-year-old showed some of that stuff with a gritty ride in Lloyd, leading to his third-place finish.
When the dust settled Saturday, the top payouts went to Maisonneuve ($4,735), Tetz ($3,694), Senger ($1,909), Buttar ($1,339) and Logan Biever ($774).
Biever, a 27-year-old Claresholm, Alta., native, was still in high school when he first competed in the Lloyd show a decade ago.
Fresh out of Lloydminster Comprehensive High School last spring, Colt Hillis returned home from his U.S. college and added more local flavour to the Winter Classic lineup. Hillis, 18, is enjoying a solid freshman season at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, Wy.
It was a festive night at the Lloyd Ex as young and older bull-riders entertained while atop some of the best bucking bulls in the business.
The Winter Classic rides the momentum of the PBR Finals, at least as long as many of those top bull-riders are able to perform so soon after the national championship.
“It’s hard to know who’s going to be coming, after the finals when everyone is just beat up,” said Buttar, fresh off a strong 2025 season.
“It was a pretty good year. I can’t complain. I was happy with it. The goal is to be the winner at the end of the year. I didn’t get that, but overall, I was happy with myself. It was a good year.
“This (Lloydminster show) is the first run of the new season.”
When he isn’t working a welding job and busy with other activities in the Kindersley area, Buttar remains as focused as ever on his bull-riding pursuits.
Up next for he and many of the other bull-riders is a New Year’s Eve event in Oyen.
“I’ll be there,” Buttar said. “That one is nice and close (to home) for me.”
The next generation of bull-riders was also represented in Lloyd on Saturday as junior steer riders kicked off the second half of the program.
Kayden Griffith of Lashburn, Sask., was the champion in that category.
Read more: PBR Winter Classic back at Lloyd Ex
