Almost 100 years ago, the seeds of all today’s national curling championships were planted (and fertilized?) by tobacco…Macdonald Tobacco. The 1927 Macdonald Brier was “the first Dominion curling championship” at a time when the country was called the Dominion of Canada.
The first rock was thrown by a Quebec lead, in a game won by Nova Scotia, the first champions. It was 50 years before Quebec won the Brier, and Nova Scotia won one of the next 94 Briers. The “western provinces” were represented by Oswald Barkwell of Yellow Grass, Sask., and the other “provinces” were Ontario, New Brunswick, Northern Ontario, Toronto and Montreal. This passionate, province-vs-province national competition usurped that of any other sport.
The point of this little history lesson is it’s now time for curling’s Canadian championships — the Brier, the Scotties and all their siblings — to drop provincial rivalries.
The concept has been on life support for almost a decade. Always saddled with its “two Ontarios”, a team from “The Territories” that rounded out a field of 12, Brier traditionalists made exceptions…or acceptions. The erosion of provincial competition really began when defending champions, no matter where they called home, received a bye. The Territories became triplets. Ranked teams were added. When the Brier starts this week, there will be 18 teams — three from Alberta, two from both Manitoba and Newfoundland.
In the Scotties, it’s even more pronounced. Three of six playoff teams last week were from Manitoba and there was a real possibility of an all-Manitoba final.
The champion, Rachel Homan of Ontario, lives in Alberta. She beat Jennifer Jones, the queen of women’s curling while representing Manitoban and for the last nine years a resident of Barrie. The last time I checked, Barrie was in southern Ontario.
Men’s curling is riddled with province jumpers, none more prolific than Ryan Fry. Born in Winnipeg, he curled in 14 Briers with Manitoba, and Northern Ontario, and Newfoundland, and Ontario. Even Mark Nichols, a gold medalist at every level representing Newfoundland-Labrador, went west three years (and two Briers) to curl with Manitoba’s Jeff Stoughton. No imports have come from other countries yet, but given Vancouver’s long-standing affection for Swedish hockey players, how long will it be until Sweden’s curling king, Niklas Edin, winds up wearing B.C. colours?
Having the best curlers at the national championships is great. So is this ever-changing format: curlers used to lament that the second-best teams on the prairies were better than most teams at the Brier or Scotties, and that has been neutralized. Curling has steadily improved its game. Before 1979, there were no playoffs at national championships, until the women broke the ice, and for 50 years the team with the best record in the Brier’s round-robin was the winner.
To continue presenting it as a competition among the provinces, instead of a competition among Canada’s best curlers, is misleading or even laughable. Those days are gone. In 1927, Canadians traditionally spent their lives in one city, or at least one province. Society is more mobile.
The Macdonald Brier was an institution that perished because the sponsor’s product — tobacco — became unpopular, not to mention unhealthy. Having teams representing provinces also needs to perish.
It’s time.
