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unusual and infamous incidents in the history of the Canadian championship. Russ Howard, the Ontario skip and a notorious yeller when it came to shouting out sweeping instructions, began to lose his voice. Between the noise on the other sheets and the crowd, his sweepers were having trouble hearing his squeaky voice. To alleviate the problem, Howard elected to use voice-activated walkie-talkie headsets hoping he could communicate with front-end players Tim Belcourt and Kent Carstairs. Belcourt wore the second unit, and Carstairs picked up the sweeping instructions from him. The system worked and the Ontario team won its contest, but after the game, Howard was told by Canadian curling officials he wasn’t allowed to use them. He asked what rule it violated, and when told there wasn’t an infraction, he brought the headsets out for the next game.

Here are a few more facts about the incident.

• In the first end of the first game with the headsets, Glenn Howard was narrow with a shot, and Russ yelled quickly and with force, and for some reason, his full voice kicked in. Over the microphone, the call nearly blew off Tim Belcourt’s ear.

• Prior to the second game, Pat Ryan of Alberta came over to see what all the commotion was and asked Howard how the units worked. With Belcourt at the other end of the ice, Howard said softly into the headset,“Hey Tim, how big is your thing?” Belcourt immediately raised his hands over his head, holding them apart about three feet. Ryan laughed.

• One argument the CCA officials gave to Howard as to why he shouldn’t be allowed to use the walkie-talkies was that someone in the crowd could be relaying information to him.When that was relayed to the press, one asked smartly, “And just what is someone in the stands going to tell Russ Howard?”

• After the next game, an RCMP officer faxed Howard and told him he’d lend him a wireless unit that wouldn’t be seen by any CCA official.

• Before every draw, Howard was handed several homemade remedies for his laryngitis by fans, and he was given throat lozenges by the basket full.

• Howard ended up using the headsets for two games, after which his voice returned.

Curling Quote

“[It’s] one of the very few sports that combine the excitement of a heavy piece of granite sliding slowly across the ice with the excitement of chunky broom-wielding people in bowling attire sweeping furiously in the stone’s path, like janitors on speed.”

—Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry on curling after viewing it at the 2002 Olympics

GOING LOW

Prince Edward Island is Canada’s smallest province, and when it comes to the Brier, it’s also the smallest on the scoreboard. The record for the combined low score in a Brier game is three—games that ended 2-1.

That’s happened on three occasions, and all three times, it has involved teams from Prince Edward Island, all of whom came out on the wrong end of the score.

In 2000, Andrew Robinson lost to Manitoba’s Jeff Stoughton, in 1993 Ontario’s Russ Howard defeated Robert Campbell, and in 1990, Ted MacFadyen came up short against Jim Sullivan of New Brunswick. In the latter two games, the teams combined for eight blank ends, also a Brier record.

THE MAGICAL 8

The eight-ender is the mark of perfection in curling—every rock in the rings and counting. It’s often compared to the hole-in-one in golf, but it’s exceedingly more difficult because, in golf, your opponent doesn’t try to keep you from scoring an ace. For an eight-ender, not only does one team have to make eight perfect shots, but the opposition has to miss as well.

For that reason, it’s rare to see an eight-ender in competitive play. But it has happened. At the 2006 Players Championship, the finale of the World Curling Tour, Kelly Scott of Kelowna, British Columbia, led her team to a perfect eight over Edmonton’s Cathy King. Here’s how the last four rocks played out:

1. Scott has six rocks in the rings, five counting. Four are in or touching the four-foot and another is on the eight-foot.The sixth rock is at the top of the rings, half in