OUT OF THE HACK: Warren looking for fourth title

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This article was published 13/10/2016 (3375 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Murray Warren will not be curling out of the Deloraine club this season but he’s not going to let that affect his time on the ice.

The building was demolished on Sept. 16 and the Deloraine-Winchester council is in the midst of planning to build a new club plus a community hall complex. As a result, Warren and his senior team of third Brian Barker, second Terry Warren and lead Reg Warren, will curl out of the Brandon club.

“It’s different, that’s for sure,” Warren said. “But it sounds like they are going to put another one up, just not too sure how quick — hopefully by next fall.”

The 61-year-old has already played a couple of games on the Brandon club’s ice this fall and will be ready to go when he and his team attempt to defend the Neil Andrews Legends Classic title they captured last year, defeating East St. Paul’s Carl German 8-1 in the final.

The event featured 16 teams a year ago but is down to 12 teams this year. Squads skipped by German, Dale Brooks of Hamiota and Butch Mouck of Gilbert Plains are among the returnees. Round-robin play opens Friday at 1 p.m., and continues through until Saturday afternoon with the playoff round beginning Sunday at 10 a.m. The final is set for 4 p.m.

And, like each of the last two years, the winner will receive a berth into senior men’s provincials being held in Winnipeg from Feb. 22 to 27.

Although Murray Warren would love to add a fourth Neil Andrews tile — he won the men’s event in 2002 and in 2011 when it was just a senior’s competition — and return to provincials, he’s just looking forward to the heat of battle.

“It’d be a nice goal but there’s lots of other teams that probably have a good or better chance than us but we’ll just do the best we can and see how it works,” Warren said.

Regardless of what happens this weekend, Warren admitted having his name attached to winning the Classic is something he is very proud of.

“He was quite a nice guy and he did quite a lot for the curling all around Manitoba, but especially for Brandon,” Warren said of Andrews.

Darryl Andrews, whose brother Neil died in 2007 at the age 58 following a bout with a rare degenerative neurological disease known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, will also be skipping a team in the event, which has a purse of $7,200 with $2,400 going to the winning team.

His expectations aren’t super high but they can’t be counted out.

“We don’t curl a whole lot so our expectations aren’t real high,” Andrews said. “You hope you can grab a game or two and then if things work out right you might sneak into the playoffs.”

He said the lack of Winnipeg teams — only three will be travelling west — combined with a late harvest are the reasons for a smaller turnout at this the 19th edition of the bonspiel, the 10th which bears Neil’s name.

“When Neil passed away a little too early we wanted to do something so the bonspiel was going at that time so we just changed the name of it to the Neil Andrews Legends Classic,” Andrews added.

CURLETTES: The Stream ‘N’ Wood Curlettes league starts play on Wednesday at the Brandon Curling Club. It will feature seven teams, an increase of one from last year.

EXTRA ENDS: A berth in the Viterra Championship will be on the line from Oct. 28-30 when Virden hosts a bonspiel. The entry deadline is today and for details contact the CurlManitoba office at 204-925-5723 or by email at mca@curlmanitoba.org.

Nathan Liewicki is the Brandon Sun’s curling reporter.

» nliewicki@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @liewicks