Provincial championship offers chance to celebrate past winners

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This article was published 18/12/2024 (274 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We’re officially in the thick of curling season as more qualifiers have wrapped up, plans are in place for a celebration of champions, and another league will crown a winner later today at the Brandon Curling Club.

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A handful of regional qualifiers concluded earlier this month but more will be looking to qualify in remaining berth bonspiels.

With the women’s championship set to start in a little over a month from now, final preparations for it and the Viterra men’s provincial championship in Portage la Prairie are shaping up.

The field isn’t fully set yet as some have won qualifying bonspiels and have the comfort of having booked a ticket to provincial championships this early in the competitive calendar.

Others will be looking to punch a ticket in the remaining bonspiels, either to return or qualify for the first time.

Stride Place has hosted plenty of curling competition but this will be the first Viterra Championship since 2017.

Mike McEwen’s rink of B.J. Neufeld, Matt Wozniak, and Denni Neufeld won that one, while last year’s winning rink of Reid Carruthers, Brad Jacobs, Derek Samagalski, and Connor Njegovan is the most recent group to represent Manitoba nationally.

That championship team will have a different look this year as Jacobs left the team last spring and Samagalski stepped away just last month.

Regardless of team rosters for this year, February’s men’s championship will provide a unique opportunity to recognize past winners with this being the 100th edition of the men’s championship.

A Celebration of Champions is being planned, as all living past winners have been invited to be honoured and recognized.

The Manitoba men’s championship was awarded for the first time in 1925, and even pre-dated the first official national championship which started in 1927.

Past winners like Don Duguid, who first won back in 1957, plans to attend, as does Doug Armour of Souris, who with his 1982 rink of Lloyd Lang, Allan Granger and Mel Logan won the provincial event before dropping the Brier to eventual champion Al Hackner.

Despite his unprecedented career in curling, having participated in 62 different provincial championships over the years, Armour said it is an exciting opportunity to reconnect with other past champions.

“I always told my guys you don’t learn anything by winning, you learn from the losses,” said Armour. “It will be great to just be around the other guys that have won championships again. Ever since COVID there have been a lot of people around my age that have dropped out of the curling scene, so it will be nice to see them again.”

Not all the members of Armour’s team will be able to join in the festivities, but the opportunity to represent them is an exciting prospect.

“It’s important to get back together one more time and mostly just congratulate them on their success. It’s nice to see each other again and hopefully have a bit of recognition but mostly just celebrate the past accomplishments of those that won provincial championships.”

The Wednesday banquet will recognize all past champions, with each day’s opening ceremony to recognize a different era of past winners.

Although it serves a number of purposes, the primary focus of bringing back past winners to celebrate their achievements ties perfectly with the centennial of championship curling in our province.

“Number one, it’s to honour and celebrate these guys, because it’s important to honour and celebrate their accomplishments but also at the banquet for the young guys to be reminded of the history of curling in Manitoba and for them to understand and appreciate it,” said Resby Coutts, a Hall of Fame curler and contributor to the sport who is one of the organizers of the celebration.

Coutts is a curling historian and someone that plans to take part in the ceremony as part of the organizing committee, but also having come close to being invited back as a champion as well, having played lead at the 1981 provincial championship that lost to Kerry Burtnyk here in Brandon.

For Coutts, it’s important that young players and participants pay homage to the pioneers of the game.

“I can almost guarantee you that a handful of them have never even heard of someone like Don Duguid before, but to hear that here’s a man that went undefeated in back-to-back world championships. Those little factoids that inspire this generation’s athletes to maybe say that’s an accomplishment they’d never even thought of,” Coutts added.

Local organizers are excited to not only welcome the best in the province that are still competing but also past winners that have represented the sport and province.

“It’s the 100th anniversary and we know that we’re going to get a bunch of past champions and as such a great turnout for the opening banquet. Every in the curling world knows the names like Kerry Burtnyk and Jeff Stoughton … I think it’s going to be a great week overall,” said Dean Moxham, co-chair of this year’s Viterra Championship.

Portage has hosted other curling championship events in recent memory like the U Sports and Canadian Colleges Athletic Association championships in 2020 and the mixed doubles Olympic trials in 2018.

The community last hosted the Viterra men’s provincial championship in 2017 and also hosted the 2012 Scotties that saw a memorable final between Jennifer Jones and Chelsea Carey.

Stride Place and Portage is a blend of a new, modern facility and small-town charm that makes most of these championships memorable.

“Easy access to get there and once they get there it’s the premium championship for men’s curling. It’s not the Brier, but considering the field and the way it’s run, makes the spectators happy to get lots of good games and you know that whoever is going to win it is going to have a good chance to win the Brier every year,” Moxham added.

Tickets for the Viterra Championship, which runs Feb. 4-9, are now on sale through the Curl Manitoba website.

Just like every year the winner of the provincial champion will be off to the national championship. The Brier is in Kelowna from Feb. 28 to March 9.

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The Westoba Credit Union Masters Super League is set to crown a winner today at the Brandon Curling Club after disruptions to last week’s playoffs.

Power issues at the Keystone Centre delayed the semifinals to today at 10 a.m., as Larry Fischer’s rink plays Murray Warren’s rink while Morley Walker’s team will take on the Murray Jorgensen rink.

Semifinal winners will play in the championship final at 1:30 p.m.

The Warren rink is the reining league champions after a perfect 9-0 record in the two-division league last year.

This year saw the Warren’s go 6-2 before knocking of Jim Renwick’s team in last week’s quarterfinal round.

The Brandon Sun will have coverage of the finals in tomorrow’s paper.

» mpackwood@brandonsun.com