Brier started Brandon’s golden run as host

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This article was published 25/11/2016 (3448 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Doug Armour only played in one Brier but what an experience that week at Westman Place in 1982 was.

In a word: Magical.

“That’s what it was, was magical,” said the 72-year-old Souris resident. “You knew probably 90 per cent of the people that were in the stands. It was a great feeling to have all the support. Even when we lost we were getting support and pats on the back.”

It was the second national men’s curling championship Brandon had ever hosted, with the first one being in 1963 when Saskatchewan’s Ernie Richardson won his second consecutive and fourth overall title at the old Wheat City Arena.

Armour threw third stones for skip Mel Logan at the 1982 Brier on a team that included second Lloyd Lang and lead Allan Granger. The Souris foursome earned the right to represent Manitoba after knocking off Gary Ross 8-2 in the provincial final.

Manitoba wound up with a 6-5 record and finished tied for third in the standings with Newfoundland’s Mark Noseworthy and Charlie Sullivan of New Brunswick. The Maritime squads battled in the first tiebreaker before Manitoba clipped New Brunswick 4-3 in the second tiebreaker and advanced to the semifinal against Northern Ontario’s Al Hackner.

Hackner stole singles in the fourth, fifth and sixth ends on his way to an 8-5 victory over Logan in the semi before dumping British Columbia’s Brent Giles 7-3 in the final to capture the first of his two Canadian titles. Hackner had lost the two previous Brier finals, but after upending Giles, his team went on to win the world championship in Germany later that year.

Armour, who won four other provincial titles as a skip — 1997 and 1999 mixed, 2002 senior and 2005 masters — and was inducted into the Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame in 2006, still thinks about the semifinal loss to Northern Ontario.

“Making the playoffs was big but the disappointment of us not playing as well in the semifinal, I remember that probably more than the victories because you want to go on when you get that close,” said Armour, who skipped a team to a national masters title in 2005 and was third on Kelly Robertson’s senior national championship team in 2011, which won a world silver medal the following year.

However the feeling of stepping onto the ice wearing the buffalo for the first game, which happened to be against Hackner, was something he will always remember.

“There was a lot of butterflies floating around but it was so super special it was almost like a dream,” Armour said. “I had to keep pinching myself to make sure it was real.”

Northern Ontario got the better of Manitoba in that opening draw, stealing one point in the ninth and 10th ends to emerge with a 7-6 victory but Draw 2 was also memorable for Armour and company.

After New Brunswick scored a deuce in the 10th end to tie the game at 5-5, Logan blanked the 11th end before scoring one in a rare 12-end triumph. That said, games were only shortened from 12 to 10 ends beginning in 1977 in Montreal.

In addition to reaching the semifinals, Armour was named a first-team all-star third after finishing with the highest overall shooting percentage among the 12 thirds in the field. In a testament to his modesty, Armour said the award didn’t belong solely to him.

“I looked at it back then as a team sport and I was thinking that if my team before me didn’t make as many shots then I couldn’t have performed as well,” he said. “It was nice to be honoured that way and I really felt fortunate.”

And Armour will always hold the estimated 106,000 people who attended the 1982 Brier — a record that stood until the 1989 edition in Saskatoon — in high regard, noting every draw was sold out.

“It was similar to what you see when hockey playoffs were on in Winnipeg,” he recalled. “It’s not as big a scale of course, but everybody is behind you so much and everything you did was good, was cheered loudly and there was a big groan when it didn’t turn out right.

“The place was humming all week. It was something I’ll never ever forget and I don’t think too many of the people who were there will ever forget it either. It was a magical week for Brandon and they did such a great job of putting it on.”

That Brier left an impact on Curling Canada and the fans as well with the first-ever Brier Patch, which is standard at every event now.

The Wheat City hasn’t hosted a Brier since Logan, Armour, Lang and Granger represented Manitoba, but Armour is optimistic the men’s national championship will return in the not too distant future. For now, however, he is looking forward to watching today’s best men’s and women’s curling teams compete in the Home Hardware Canada Cup of Curling.

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Robert Campbell skipped Prince Edward Island to the first of his two Canadian mixed championships when the event was in Brandon in 1989. Saskatchewan’s Sandra Schmirler (also known as Sandra Peterson) captured the first Scott Tournament of Hearts held at Westman Place in 1993, beating the Brandon foursome of Maureen Bonar, Lois Fowler, Allyson Bell and Rhonda Ritchie (nee Fowler) 7-6 in an extra end.

The event was renamed the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in 2007.

However, it was a pair of events later in the ’90s that Reid Lumbard remembers fondly.

That’s because Lumbard, who is now 74 years old, played an integral role behind the scenes at the 1995 men’s and women’s world championships, as well as the 1997 Canadian Olympic Trials. The Brandonite served as the committee chair in 1995 and as the head of marketing two years later.

But the work toward bringing his hometown its first international curling event began three years early.

“We started working on it in ’92 and we went to Germany, to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, to see the worlds there,” Lumbard said. “That’s where we sort of started our negotiations and through the long and short of a lot of our negotiations we ended up being awarded the worlds.

“We were tickled.”

Winnipegger Connie Laliberte was at the 1992 world championships and earned a bronze medal. Little did Lumbard know that three years later Laliberte would be one of two Manitobans wearing the Maple Leaf and have the backing of the vast majority of fans inside Westman Place. Kerry Burtnyk, who was born in Reston, was the other national champion aiming to win a third consecutive world title for Canada.

“Having two Manitoba teams represent Canada — we had Burtnyk and Laliberte — was tremendous,” Lumbard noted.

But 18 months before the worlds began, the event was sold out.

According to Lumbard, the committee had to work with a $3-million budget. Half of that budget was paid for in ticket sales

“A year-and-a-half in advance we took $1 million in ticket sales to CIBC on Eighth and Rosser,” Lumbard said, laughing at the memory.

The worlds turned a profit of $210,882.96. It didn’t hurt that Canada made it to both finals.

Burtnyk ended a perfect week with a 4-2 win over Scotland’s Gordon Muirhead in the final, while Laliberte came up just short in a 6-5 extra-end defeat at the hands of Swedish skip Elisabet Gustafson.

“I think probably the best thing was that just the pride in Brandon hosting,” Lumbard said. “From a volunteer standpoint we had 1,700 volunteers for the worlds … from all over the world. With teams from all over the world — Australia, Germany and Wales — they just kept raving about how good Brandon was and it was done first class.

“To stand back and see that and have the building full of people and a lot of great social events that were held in that facility is wonderful to reminisce about.”

Two-plus years later the Wheat City welcomed back top-tier curling talent when it was selected to host the first Canadian Olympic Trials.

“People were surprised we had another major curling event on the heels of the worlds and in August of (1997) Brandon was hosting the Canada Summer Games so there was a little concern about us getting overloaded but Mayor (Rick) Borotsik was great to work with and agreed that we could do both.” Lumbard said.

Unheralded skip Mike Harris led his Ontario team to a 7-2 round-robin record before nipping Edmonton’s Kevin Martin 6-5 in the men’s final. On the women’s side, Schmirler, who won her third national and world titles earlier in the year, also posted a 7-2 record and deposed of Alberta’s Shannon Kleibrink 9-6 to earn a berth to the 1998 Nagano Games.

Following the success of the Trials, Lumbard said Brandon strongly considered trying to land a national junior championship but that push lost steam. He also noted that seeing the Brier return to Westman Place is something the curling community throughout Westman would very much like to see.

Nonetheless, Lumbard is grateful the Wheat City received a chance to host the Canada Cup, which, in the prior 12 editions, has never been played in Manitoba.

“I’m happy to see the Canada Cup coming and Brandon starting to get involved in some more curling events,” Lumbard said. “It seems like it’s going to be revived and I think these events are super for the city.”

• • •

Colleen Jones captured a Canada Cup 12 years ago in Kamloops, B.C., but Brandon is the city where the Halifax skipper turned in an all-time performance.

“That Brandon final was my best final of my life,” Jones said from Halifax. “I’ll never play like that again. That’s the kind of performance you dream of and that was just curling gods smiling on us that day.”

The Canadian Sports Hall of Famer curled an unbelievable 99 per cent as she helped her team, with third Kim Kelly, second Mary-Anne Arsenault (nee Waye) and lead Nancy Delahunt, defend their title with an 8-5 victory over Saskatchewan’s Sherry Anderson in the final.

The defending champions rebounded from a 6-3 loss to Anderson in 1-vs.-2 Page playoff game to beat Sherry Middaugh of Ontario 8-6 in the semifinal and set up a rematch with the Saskatchewan representatives.

Anderson was trailing 3-1 in the sixth end and had the hammer. Then came the shot Jones still cannot believe she saw.

“We thought Sherry had a crack at a double and somehow it was almost like all of a sudden she missed,” Jones said. “I couldn’t even envision her missing and I still remember that steal of three with my mouth open almost going, ‘How did that just happen?’

“If ever there was a sign luck and things are going your way … that was without a doubt the turning point where you could definitely see the wind went out of their sails. Momentum was clearly on our side and it was just really a difference of one shot.

“It was just such a dream event and Brandon — I wish I had named my kid Brandon — but it was too late, they were already born.”

That one shot paved the way for the second of four consecutive championships — a Canadian women’s curling record — for Jones, who owns an unmatched six titles. She also won a pair of world championships (2004 and 2001), and was part of national mixed championships in 1993 and 1999. Earlier this year the 56-year-old claimed the Canadian senior women’s title with a 5-2 win over Anderson and will don the Maple Leaf at the 2017 worlds in Fredericton in March.

But like her best game ever, Jones’ curling dreams became permanent in Brandon — in 1979.

“My whole motivation for curling began at those ’79 Brandon Canada (Winter) Games,” Jones recalled. “They did such a fantastic job and treated all of those kids with such class that that’s what motivated me to push on and fall in love with curling and those giant snowbanks we faced that year, too.”

She earned a silver medal in 1979, and, coincidentally, Burtnyk captured gold on the men’s side that same year.

Jones would go on to play in the Wheat City several times during her career, including at the 1993 Scott. It was memorable every time, although no memory was greater than her 2002 triumph.

“Anywhere in Manitoba is kind of a curling capital but it felt incredible then, and then to go back … I remember being there and going, ‘Ohhhh, what a great venue and what a great place to win’ and then when we got to play there and win there,” she said. “It was just one of those epic moments because the crowds were really knowledgeable and the ice conditions were perfect and it’s great to be in sort of the heartland of curling when you are playing there.

“I grew up in the pre-Internet age going to the (Dalhousie) library just wanting to read everything about Manitoba curling. It is a unique spot where people understand the strategy, they understand the players, they understand the history and I think for our team the people from Brandon recognized coming from Nova Scotia that maybe we weren’t from a curling mecca but we were working as hard as we could to kind of try to be as good as everybody.”

Hard to be believe it’s been almost 15 full years since Jones rejoiced with a national title in Brandon — the last time a Curling Canada event was played in the Wheat City. Even Jones was surprised to hear that.

“Really?! I’m shocked!” she exclaimed. “I’m so shocked by that because every event I’ve ever been at in Brandon has been so first-class and so wonderful and it’s about time they’ve been back there because it’s such a great spot.”

But Jones is glad the Wheat City is again having the national curling spotlight shining on it.

“I’ll never forget the sound of the crowd because that was so marvellous to walk down after we won — hand-in-hand down that main sheet — and hear the crowd in Brandon so appreciative of what we’d done,” she said. “They were so wonderful and warm.”

» nliewicki@brandonsun.com

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