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A whisper away
Voiceless skip Russ Howard is challenging for first place at the Brier
Russ Howard's voice is finished, kaput, but the New Brunswick skip is still very much alive in the Labatt Brier, successfully promoted here as "The last Big Shootout of the Century" among Canada's top curlers.
Maybe Mr. Hurry H-a-a-a-a-rd, a two-time world champion, can't talk, but he can whisper a little and that was enough yesterday to get his Moncton Beaver Curling Club team back on a winning track.
They won twice in back-to-back matches with no break.
First they nipped Robert Campbell of Prince Edward Island 7-6. Then they bombed Glen Goss, Newfoundland's "Silver Fox," 9-3 in a match in which the St. John's skip tossed in the towel after seven ends.
The victories jumped New Brunswick, which is 0-for-70 since the Brier began back in 1927, to a 5-2 record and very much in contention for an historic first-ever championship.
While 72 years have elapsed since the national championship first got started, it was put on the shelf during the war years (1943-45) because of travel restrictions across the country.
Only Sam Richardson of Saskatchewan, who won four times, and Ron Northcott, Ken Watson and Matt Baldwin, who have all won three, have more Brier titles than Howard, a two-time champion who moved from Midland, Ont., to Moncton last fall.
Against Newfoundland, Howard didn't have to talk much at all.
His rotating rink of Wayne Tallon, Grant Odishaw, Rick Perron and Jeff Lacey scored three in the very first end and never looked back.
Lacey, playing lead, set the table working at 94 per cent. Perron was 88, Tallon 93 and Howard 89.
At 5-2, the same as Paul Flemming of Nova Scotia, two Maritime rinks are breathing down the neck of leader Guy Hemmings of Quebec.
Hemmings, the popular owner of a green-house in St. Amis, holds a 5-1 record.
While Howard was beating Campbell, Hemmings lost his first game of the championship on the next sheet, falling 8-7 to Scott Patterson of Northern Ontario.
Behind Howard and Flemming is local favourite Ken Hunka of Alberta, Bert Gretzinger of British Columbia and Jeff Stoughton of Manitoba, all tied with 4-2 records.
Patterson, Rich Moffatt of Ontario and Gerald Shymko still have playoff hopes at 3-3, while out of the running is Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island, both at 1-6, and Orest Peach of the Yukon-Northwest Territories at 0-6.
But, what about Howard's voice? What's the game plan now?
"Stop talking. Keep curling," he whispered.
When he went to bed Monday, Howard's voice was fine.
"Typical of the Brier out West," he said. "It's so dry you lose it overnight. It was fine last night. I wake up this morning and it's gone."
Howard figures not being able to bark orders cost his rink four shots against PEI.
"I have to communicate," he said. "There were some frustrating moments in that game."
Howard confesses he likes where New Brunswick stands.
"You come here to get in contention and we are," he said. "Five-and-two with a brand new team is pretty damn good. But, we've got a helluva tough finish. We've got Ontario, Manitoba, Quebec and Territories. That's at least three tough teams, maybe four."
Howard won't bet that 7-4 will get N.B. in the playoffs.
"I think 8-3 is still what we have to shoot for. We have to win three of four games and they're all tough games."
Today they get the morning off, but then play back-to-back games again. They face Ontario at 4 p.m. AST, and Manitoba at 9:30 p.m. AST.
Tomorrow they finish up their round-robin schedule playing Quebec at 11:30 a.m. AST and Yukon-NWT at 9:30 p.m.
The playoffs will be held Friday with the semi-final on Saturday (5 p.m. AST) and the championship on Sunday (3 p.m. AST).
Against PEI, Howard fought hard to get control and then almost lost it at the end.
Campbell blanked the first end and then took a single in the second.
Howard got his deuce in the third, but gave it right back in the fourth.
In the fifth, Howard finally scored three when he got lots of rocks in play and then drew around a guard for three.
But he still couldn't shake the PEI skip, who entered the match with a 1-4 record.
Even with Howard leading 7-4, Campbell fought back with a single in the eighth and then closed it to 7-6 with a steal of one in the ninth.
In a cleanly played 10th, Howard tried to peel a PEI guard in front of an empty house with his first shot. However, he was a whisker wide and whistled right through.
Campbell then committed the game's major sin - light on a draw with nothing in the house - and Howard didn't have to throw his last rock.
Howard said later that Campbell's stone picked up something on the ice.
"We got a break. I bet I made 15 perfect draws in the game and I come up heavy in nine and missed a peel on ten. It looked like we were going to an extra end, but his rock picks."
N.B. curled at 85 per cent and Howard was pleased.
"We played well," he said. "It's just like I said at the start of the week. All teams are tough and you play average you lose, play good you win. We played average twice and lost. We played good the other four games."