1999 Brier
SLAM! Sports
SLAM! Curling
1999 BRIER
ON THE ROCKS
INTERACTIVE
ALSO ON SLAM!
This guy Guy's for real
"Guy! Guy! Guy!'' Gerald Shymko chanted.
And Guy Hemmings joined him on stage to help with the judging.
Eighteen hours later Hemmings sat in the hack in the 11th end facing another kind of button to settle the 'Uke vs. toque' love-in.
The crowd of 13,272 was split on how they wanted this to work out.
But with the way it worked out, they couldn't help but rise as one and roar like maybe no curling crowd has ever roared before.
It was just your basic out-turn draw to the button. Make it and you go to today's noon final. Lose it and you go home.
He made it.
"This guy can skip with anybody on earth,'' said third Pierre Charette.
"He has nerves of steel, especially when he's throwing the draw.''
Charette laughed.
"I didn't get into curling until 1983. It was a boring sport, eh?''
What happened on that shot - indeed on the same shot in the same game the year before - is excellent evidence to the contrary. It isn't every NHL hockey game in this same building that a crowd explodes like that crowd exploded when Hemmings made his shot.
It started with silence.
"I thought it was too much ice,'' said Charette.
Everybody in the building leaned forward and everybody heard the words Charette shouted as Hemmings released the rock.
"No line! No line!''
"That's still ringing in my head,'' Charette said a half hour after it was over while reminding everybody that the shot Hemmings made last year to win the semi "saved my ass'' after he'd missed two raise takeouts.
Hemmings did an arms-pumping, body-gyrating on-ice celebration which made you think of Theoren Fleury's Stanley Cup playoff overtime goal scoring celebrating.
It was wonderful, wonderful stuff.
Everybody in the building couldn't help but be happy for the colourful character who showed up for the walk behind the bagpipes yesterday wearing a volunteer's black cowboy hat.
Shymko said, in the end, it was impossible for anybody from Saskatchewan including himself and his rink to do anything but to take their hats off to the guy.
"What a great shot to the pin. It looked like it was really out there. We got beat by a great shot. You can't lose to a nicer team than they are.''
Aw, shucks, said Hemmings, the big lug deserves the big hug.
"I leave my hat for the Shymko team. He is a great guy. I wish he lived in my province and was my friend to have over to dinner every Saturday night.''
Guy Hemmings for prime minister!
Gerald Shymko for agriculture minister!
For the local organizing committee, because of all the former Saskatchewan residents in these parts, having the Jolly Green Giant in the high-noon final against Jeff Stoughton of Manitoba would probably have given this record-setting Brier a better shot at a sellout today than the Guy guy.
But this Guy has so much charisma, after what happened here yesterday, it's hard to believe he can't sell the remaining 2,900 walk-up tickets.
Hemmings is the first matinee idol in the history of this sport. And he's taking curling places it's never been before.
Like the first sports page of a French language Quebec newspaper.
"We made the front page of the sports section,'' said Hemmings.
"This is amazing. They don't usually even print the scores. Amazing.''
And that was before the Shot.
"This is the second year I had to make a great shot to win it,'' said Hemmings of last year's semifinal.
He didn't see the shot until after he did his interviews and voiced over the replay for today's TSN show.
"I didn't see the end. I just saw my second lift his broom.''
Then he went nuts.
"Ah, I was really, really pumped, eh?''
That shot, that win, legitimized Guy Hemmings. To prove that getting to the final last year was no fluke they had to repeat the feat. And to do it he had to make a shot which was no fluke either.
"Last year they said it was a fluke, that we were in the final because it was a good time and place. I'm not deaf. Now what do they say? How often does Quebec win two in a row?''
Never.
Quebec's only previous Brier win was back in 1977 by transplanted Manitoban Jim Ursel.
Hemmings can't remember it.
"I didn't pay any attention to curling then. I probably thought putting that shot in the middle of the rings meant you'd get five points or something.''
With that he headed back to the Brier Patch.
"I think I'll go enjoy this and go have a few Canadian Clubs.''
Listen to 'Terry Jones At Large' weekdays at 8:35 a.m. and 5:10 p.m. on 790 CFCW.