1982 BRIER — Part 3: The Archives — Giles climbs to top of mountain

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This article was published 11/08/2022 (1394 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This article originally appeared in the March 13, 1982 edition of the Brandon Sun

A week ago there was no doubt. Everyone knew that Al Hackner and his Northern Ontario rink would be on top of the standings following the completion of round-robin play at the 1982 Labatt Brier.

Hackner would then sit and wait until Sunday, when he would roll to his first Canadian men’s curling championship.

Then, practically out of nowhere, along came Brent Giles and his British Columbia rink.

While Hackner got off to an early jump by winning his first eight games at the Keystone Centre, Giles was quietly going about his business.

And, it all came to a head on Friday, in two wild and crazy draws.

When the last rock had been thrown late yesterday afternoon, Giles and his foursome of third Greg Monkman, second Al Roemer and lead Brad Giles owned a 9-2 record, which was good for first place overall and a bye into Sunday’s final.

While Giles was on the move — in yesterday’s games, he dumped Alberta 5-3 and New Brunswick 6-4 — Hackner was fading … fast. He ended up losing his last three games, including a 7-5 setback to Ontario yesterday morning and a 6-5 loss to Alberta in the afternoon when Gary Morken hit and stayed with his last rock on the 11th end.

Giles’ win over New Brunswick’s Charlie Sullivan also created a three-way tie for third place at 6-5. Sullivan, in a special tiebreaker, went on to beat Newfoundland’s Mark Noseworthy 8-7 in 11 ends last night and was to meet Manitoba’s Mel Logan this morning.

Needless to say, the crowd of 5,800 was overjoyed when Giles stole two points in the 10th end to beat Sullivan and give Logan yet another life.

Sullivan, with the hammer, was looking at two Giles’ stones in the eight-foot circle. The New Brunswick skip attempted a short raise, but he came out heavy and ended up pushing the stone a bit too far.

Giles, meanwhile, became the first B.C. skip to finish in first place since the late Lyall Dagg turned the trick at Charlottetown in 1964.

“It might be good for us, it might not,” said Giles. “But, we’re quite happy about it. We’d like a day off right now. It gives us a bit of a rest and if we use it to our advantage it might help. But, you never know — the layoff might kill us.”

Giles admitted that his rink went into the competition thinking only of making the playoffs. Finishing first was strictly a bonus.

“I don’t think you can set your sights on first place and say it’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s a funny game and we got a few breaks all the way — we got a few bad ones, too — but they all seemed to even out. We’re happy to make the playoffs and even happier to be No. 1.”

Curling certainly can be a funny game and no one knows that any better than Hackner and his rink of third Rick Lang, second Bob Nicol and lead Bruce Kennedy.

After high-stepping their way to an 8-0 record they watched in dismay as the wheels fell off.

“It’s happened again,” said Hackner, referring to the fact his rink stumbled late in the 1980 Brier at Calgary and again in 1981 at Halifax. “I really can’t figure out what goes on. I don’t know if we tend to relax a little bit or not. We try to keep our intensity up but we just can’t quite keep it there.”

A couple of days back, Hackner didn’t seem to feel that the victories were coming too easily. Now, though, he’s not so sure.

“Now it seems like they may have,” he said. “We can’t seem to make some of the good shots we were making. But, we always come up big for a big game. So, we’ll be up for Saturday’s game and I’m sure we’ll do well.

“I’d definitely rather wait until Sunday to play, but I guess there’s a few teams that would trade positions with us right now. So, I guess we’re happy to be where we are now.”