1999 Brier
SLAM! Sports
SLAM! Curling
1999 BRIER
ON THE ROCKS
INTERACTIVE
ALSO ON SLAM!
Going out Harrrrrrd!
Seventy-six wins.
One hundred and twelve games.
If you're scoring, that's the line on Russ Howard after the 1999 Labatt Brier.
But the line on New Brunswick remains the same.
Briers won: None.
Before this all started, Howard was asked if he thought he could ever make it to 100 wins.
No way, said the man who breaks the records with every Brier he attends, every game he plays and every win he registers.
PERSONAL GOAL
But he had a different thought this day after his rink had managed to win eight, seven in the regular round plus the tie-breaker here this year.
"I definitely want to get back for a 10th Brier.
"I'm thinking if I did that, I'd have a pretty good shot at 80 wins. And, as for 100... well, I didn't think that would be possible out of New Brunswick. I mean, New Brunswick was 3-8 every year. I was thinking that would take 14 more Briers. Now...''
Howard loved this Brier almost as much as the last one held here, the first of the two he's won so far.
"I'm so proud of my team,'' he said. "They played great.
"It was so rewarding. They all had such a wonderful attitude. It was really, really exciting.''
If they'll have him, Howard wants to try make it to the Saskatoon 2000 Brier with them.
But he also plans to contest the cashspiel circuit with his old Ontario rink. They made $128,000 out there this year.
Howard didn't change his team's rotation system, which included Grant Odishaw rotating from third to second to lead and out so everybody could play three out of every four games. He even stuck with it in the playoffs.
"We might have six men next year,'' he laughed.
Howard said it worked. And if that's the way the guys want to go again, curling with each other as a rink in the Maritimes while he travels the cash circuit and then turn into a five-man team for the playdowns, he's all for doing it again.
"Right now I'm saying, 'Yes.'
"I think it will be the wave of the future.''
While he'd have loved to have made it to play today, Howard said in this field, you had to be prepared to take your lumps.
FINAL MATCH
"I knew going into this thing that nobody was going to be easy. And nobody was easy,'' said Howard when it was over and he was out and Saskatchewan's Shymko had advanced to today's semifinal.
"I'd hoped maybe my experience would be a factor. But they threw a lot of great shots,'' said the skip who now heads to his new home to take up his new job as the director of golf at the new Royal Oaks golf club outside of Moncton.
Howard made the playoffs ranking fifth of the five teams. His four losses were to the other four teams - Manitoba, Quebec, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia - who survived the regular round.
Going against Paul Flemming's Bluenosers in the 8:30 a.m. tiebreaker yesterday morning, Howard stole one on both the third and sixth ends to win 5-4.
The old pro curled 99 per cent to win the game.
"We won the east anyway,'' Mr. Hurry Hard said after the matchup between the two Maritime teams.
"Now we have to take on those western guys and the guy with the bad hair in the middle.''
Nope. Now he'll be watching those western guys and the guy with the bad hair from Quebec.
The sodbuster from Saskatchewan ended his Brier in the afternoon.
"I said to the boys this morning, if we can go one-on-one against these guys, which is what curling is, it all seems to even out. But it didn't work out that way.
"Historically, I've been able to beat the guys who have beat me the first time we played.
"We lost a tough game against Nova Scotia in the round robin and we won a tough one in the tiebreaker. We lost a tough game against Saskatchewan in the round robin and I was hoping we'd win a tough game with them today.''
SPECIAL
Howard said this Brier will always be special to him, his rink and every other rink which played in the 'Last Shootout of the Century.'
"The crowd size and the knowledgeable crowd they were,'' he said. "It was pretty exciting to make an angle raise double and have 13,000 react like they did. I've curled at a few events and I've never experienced anything close to this.."