It was just days before Newfoundland first won the Brier. Curling’s national championship was being played at the Regina Exhibition Stadium, which by today’s site standards might rank as an oversized barn that held 7,000 spectators and a few cows. Curling brooms were made of corn straw… you sweep, and you sweat. There was no time limit (some games took four hours), no free guard zone, no overhead cameras, no replays. Games were 12 ends.
Newfoundland was represented by Jack MacDuff’s rink. Actually, MacDuff was representing all of what is now called Atlantic Canada, because the four far-east provinces had an all-for-one attitude when it came to a curling title none of them had won. Unofficial oddsmakers created a package offering: Take the Atlantic Canada “field” and your odds are 27 to 1. It drew little action.
The odds were better that somebody would run a three-minute mile, or that a tech company named after a piece of fruit would become the world’s most popular producer of high-end computers costing more than the price of a two-week Hawaiian vacation.
This was exactly half a century ago. Newfoundland had won 22 Brier games in 25 years. MacDuff, when he won, was not a favourite. Clare DeBlonde from Manitoba was. So was Bernie Sparkes of B.C., wearing eight of what became 12 Purple Hearts decorating his sweater. Wayne Sokolosky was a nobody, but in those days, nobody was a nobody when you won Alberta. Quebec’s Jim Ursel, an experienced 4-to-1 pick, started the week 1-4.
It was called “the unpredictable Brier.” The teams with the lowest percentages were on top, the teams with the highest on the bottom. MacDuff was unknown, nice looking except for facial hair that wasn’t yet socially acceptable to the establishment. He was affable and accessible. His team was guided by the unofficial coaching from their courtesy car driver. Sam Richardson, of the Saskatchewan Richardsons who’d once dominated the Brier 15 years earlier, imparted daily tips as he drove.
The best quote in my notebook that week came from Newfoundland lead Ken Templeton, who told me: “This might be a Newfie joke itself. I’m going to buy an Olympic lottery ticket. We’re never going to get this far again.”
And Newfoundland didn’t get that far again until Brad Gushue, who won his first Brier in 2017, not long after Sam Richardson died. Gushue has won six of the last nine Briers and the skip who kept him from making it eight of nine is now his third, Brendan Bottcher. With this Brier in Gushue’s hometown, St. John’s, he is the sentimental favourite.
What became of Jack MacDuff? He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which affected his mobility but not his happy-go-lucky attitude. Before that Brier, he’d never won much. After it, he never won much. But that week, all the stars lined up, and he won nine of 11 games.
If the stars lined up this week, Gushue would retire as an unprecedented seven-time champion, in the city with streets named after him, in the province he never abandoned. He’d beat Nathan Young, his Newfoundland heir apparent, in the final, in an extra end.
And Jack MacDuff would be there to watch.
