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• His first provincial title was the 1965 Ontario Schoolboy, which he won while representing Don Mills Collegiate Institute.

• He appeared in the movie Men With Brooms, playing a minor role as a curling broadcaster, calling the action of the film’s ultimate match.

• He was the fifth man on Mike Harris’s Canadian Olympic team, which played in the 1998 Games in Nagano, Japan. To qualify for a medal, he was required to play at least one end. He actually played two, in a game against Germany in which Canada had already posted a healthy lead. That allowed him to earn a silver medal. At 50, he was the oldest medalist in the ’98 Games.

• Prior to leaving for the Olympics, he had the Olympic rings tattooed onto his rear end. A picture of the tattoo appeared on the front page of a Toronto newspaper.

• He played in seven Briers, winning once as third for Ed Werenich in 1983, and finishing second on three other occasions.

• After his playing career, Savage became an entrepreneur in the game, starting an Ontario-based skins game, which grew to become a nationally televised event pitting the top teams in Eastern Canada vs. those in Western Canada.

• He was on the losing end of one of the greatest comebacks in Brier history. In the 1974 Brier, he was leading Hec Gervais by seven points after six ends but lost in an extra end—the 11th.

• He was given the nickname “the Round Mound of Come Around” by the Ontario Curling Report owing to his girth as well as his talent for playing the draw shot. It was a play on the nickname of NBA player Charles Barkley, who was known as the “Round Mound of Rebound.”

• Paul’s daughter, Lisa, was the 1994 World Junior champion.

AMERICAN ORIGINS

The first curling club in the United States was formed in Orchard Lake, Michigan, in 1831, six years before the state officially joined the union that would become the United States of America.

MOVING INDOORS IN THE U.S.A.

Although curling was a popular sport in the United States at the turn of the century, it was rarely played indoors. An exhibition match in 1897 in Brooklyn, New indoors. An exhibition match in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, is believed to be the first time curling was played in a covered rink in America, but it wasn’t until 1910 that it was first played on an indoor rink. That event took place in Boston at the Boston Arena when three sheets were put into a skating rink in order to host a bonspiel.

The first United States Men’s Curling Championship, however, took that to another level with a rather impressive start. The championship was held in Chicago in 1957 at the Chicago Stadium, an 18,000-seat arena that served as home to the NHL’s Chicago Black Hawks and the NBA’s Chicago Bulls. It was also broadcast on regional television. The winner of that inaugural contest was a rink from Hibbing, Minnesota, skipped by Harold Lauber.

PASSPORT, PLEASE

Canadian ex-pats have taken their game to many countries over the years and represented those countries at a high level.

Here is a selection of Canadian-born skips who have represented countries other than their native land in the world championships:

Hugh Milliken

Canadian Country Represented Year First Represented

Bob Woods Sweden 1967

Keith Wendorf Germany 1978

Roger Schmidt Germany 1987

Maymar Gemmell USA 1991

Hugh Milliken Australia 1992

Patti Lank U.S.A. 1997

Dan Mustapic New Zealand 2001

A BOY AMONG MEN

The youngest player to compete at the world championships was 15-year-old Sjur Loen, who skipped Norway’s entry in 1974. At that time, there were no age restrictions, and Loen’s team of Hans Bekkelund (16), Morten Sogaard (17), and Hans Okelsrud (18) managed a record of 2-7. The next year, the first World Junior Curling Championship was held in Toronto, and although Loen didn’t compete in that event, he represented Norway from 1976 to 1979, with his best finish coming in 1976, when he ended third. Loen managed to make it into the men’s world championship nine more times, winning it twice.