Curling, Etcetera_ A Whole Bunch of Stuff About the Roaring Game - Bob Weeks [31]
SUBSTITUTE CHAMPIONS
When the first Brier was held in Toronto in 1927, it was organized late in the curling year, and there was a scramble to assemble the representative teams.
Two members of Ontario’s team, winners of the Silver Tankard, had to be called back from Florida, where they’d escaped to pass the winter. The team’s second, Mel Hunt (father of the late Toronto sportswriter Jim Hunt), and Harry Watson (grandfather of hockey broadcaster Harry Neale) returned with just a few days to spare.
The Nova Scotia entry had its own difficulties.When locals received the invitation to come to Toronto for the first championship, they originally decided to send Murray Macniell’s provincial championship rink. But the only one able to make the trip was the skip, so he selected three other skips to join him.The first time the team played together as a team was the opening draw of the Brier. It obviously worked, as the Halifax four became the first Canadian champions.
VISIBLE MINORITY
Only one non-white has won the Canadian men’s curling championship. Rudy Ramcharan, who played second for Kevin Martin’s winning squad in 1997, is of Guyanese background. He disappeared from curling circles a few years later after trying to run a cash event, officially the World Open but known to many as the Rudy Spiel, with a purse of $500,000. However he was never able to secure the sponsorship, and a number of teams competed and were never fully compensated. Ramcharan became persona non grata among many of the top curlers.
Curling Quote
“There’s not too many guys who can really be entrusted with (the ice). Besides, you’d have to be nuts to do it anyway. The hours, the work, the stress, the pressure of it all and I don’t even get to curl on it. I’m the only one held responsible. It doesn’t matter if the rocks are no good, or if the weather is bad, in the end, it all reflects on me. So come on curling gods, keep taking care of me.”
—Icemaker Dave Merklinger, who made the ice for the 2007 Tim Hortons Brier in Hamilton, as told to the Hamilton Spectator
CLOSE TO PERFECTION
There has never been an eight-ender in Brier history, but there have been two occasions when it seemed almost certain the perfect end would be recorded.
• In 1947 Jimmy Welsh of Manitoba played Prince Edward Island’s Frank Acorn. In the eighth end, Acorn was looking at seven Manitoba counters, and his final rock was light, stopping just into the twelve-foot. Welsh needed to be better than that Prince Edward Island rock to score the magical eight, but he was heavy and ended up scoring seven.
• In the 1936 Brier, Ken Watson’s team was rolling to win after win, and in its seventh match it faced a winless Prince Edward Island squad. Prior to the game, Watson gave lead Charlie Kerr a cigar, which Kerr smoked as the game progressed. In the first end, with Watson sitting five, third Grant Watson threw a draw that appeared to be perfect but just a little light. Kerr and second Marvin McIntyre put the brooms to it and just as it approached the rings, an ash from the cigar dropped in front of the stone, and it ground to an immediate halt, inches from the target. When the next two Manitoba stones found the house, the team had a seven-ender that could have been eight were it not for the cigar ash.
A HEART OF PURPLE
The Purple Heart is a highly sought-after crest for male curlers in Canada. It