1999 Brier
SLAM! Sports
SLAM! Curling
1999 BRIER
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Who's on first?
Day of upsets, blowouts and shootouts leaves five tied at the top
Upsets, blowouts and shootouts.
And, still no clear indication of how the 1999 Labatt Brier dogfight is going to turn out.
There are the contenders. They played all this time just to grab part of a five-way tie for first. Geez, there was only a four-way tie for first the day before.
Manitoba's Jeff Stoughton, New Brunswick's Russ Howard, Nova Scotia's Paul Flemming and Quebec's Guy Hemmings were already there Tuesday night despite win-one-lose-one days.
Saskatchewan's Gerald Shymko worked himself into the lead pack yesterday with a two-win day. Still, he's hedging his bets, with five rinks taking 6-3 records into the final day of round-robin play.
"There's a few teams losing out there right now you wouldn't expect to lose, so boy, it's going to be a long day tomorrow,'' said Shymko. "You guys could be here all night.
"It's still a nice mess. It's great for the media and great for all the fans and it's a great race. She's far from over. We're going to come down to Thursday night.''
ANYTHING'S POSSIBLE
Putting a positive spin on the deal, Shymko figures a split would be just fine.
"If you're 7-4, you definitely have to be in a tiebreaker,'' said Shymko. "You could probably be comfortable with four losses. Five is iffy.''
Hemmings also knows anything is possible.
"Everybody's knocking off everybody else,'' said Hemmings, who hammered Orest Peech of the Yukon/N.W.T. 13-1 in six ends last night.
"We're fortunate we had the start we had. If we were playing like we are right now, we would have been out of it a long time ago. We're lucky enough to still be in it.''
While most rookie Brier observers are betting on tiebreakers, veteran Howard - a 7-6 loser to Stoughton last night - has been at enough of these deals to foresee a different scenario.
"I was telling my wife this morning that this will probably break clean once all is said and done,'' said Howard.
That may sound like an about-face from the start of the week, when Howard went on record as saying this was one of the most evenly matched fields he's been involved with.
And he's got the numbers to prove it.
"You have the top team (New Brunswick) curling 84 per cent and the bottom team (actually, the 10th-ranked teams) are at 80 per cent,'' Howard pointed out. "It shows how much parity there is out here.''
Flemming hung in at .500 yesterday, beating Northern Ontario's Scott Patterson 5-3 after a 7-3 loss to Saskatchewan. The situation is no surprise to him.
"Not really,'' said Flemming. "You almost have to be a mathematician to figure it out. It's quite a logjam. It's a lot of fun. It's good for the fans. I'm trying not to watch the scoreboard, but I'm guilty just like everybody else out there.''
POST-GAME PINT
After a hairy day, there's only one thing left to do.
"I think I'm ready for a nice cold drink right now,'' said Flemming. "Sponsor's product.''
Then there are the faint-hopers, B.C.'s Bert Gretzinger and Ontario's Rich Moffatt at 5-4.
As for the others, including Alberta's Ken Hunka (4-5), it's pretty well, "See ya next time you're lucky enough to get here." But stay tuned. This week has been weird already.
There could be another day of wackiness left.