1999 Brier
SLAM! Sports
SLAM! Curling
1999 BRIER
ON THE ROCKS
INTERACTIVE
ALSO ON SLAM!
Meltdown?
Yukon/Territories heading for dubious Brier record
But then Orest Peech has never been here before. Or Pat Paslawski. Or Brian Wasnea. Or Don Irwin.
The Territories have always been the cure for a Brier hangover. But this year they have been extra-strength Excedrin.
This year, there is every evidence we may be about to be watching history happen. The Yukon-Northwest Territories team looks like it has the potential to go where no one has gone before.
The story of the 70th Brier - the 20th Labatt Brier - is how many rinks came here with a real chance to win this thing. But these guys have their own storyline going at the bottom of the Brier barrel.
The big game was yesterday.
While most of the 11,105 in Skyreach Centre for Draw 7 were watching glamour guys Guy Hemmings and Ken Hunka battle it out on Sheet C, the crucial game was on Sheet A where the Territories were playing the compelling contest against Newfoundland.
Both had yet to win a game.
The Whitehorse guys gave up four on the second end en route to a shake-hands-after-nine loss to Glenn Goss.
They haven't given up an eight-ender yet like Northern Ontario did. But they've given up two four-enders, six three-enders and eight two-enders.
They've lost 11-3 to Northern Ontario, 10-4 to Nova Scotia, 9-4 to Alberta, 10-6 to Newfoundland and 7-4 to B.C., Bert Gretzinger's rink the only one suffering the humiliation of actually having to play the full 10 ends against these guys.
"It was disappointing,'' said skip Orest Peech after shaking hands early with the Newfies.
"What can I say?''
But then he put on his best Joe Namath/Mark Messier face and made the great guarantee.
"We'll win a game,'' he said. "We're gonna win one! There isn't a thought in my mind that we're not going to win one.''
The Territories have yet to win a Brier since joining the event in 1975. But that year they looked like they'd be legitimate when Don Twa went 8-3 and finished in a tie for second.
Since then it's been tough sledding for this outfit, which goes into play today with an 83-187 all-time Brier record.
Yesterday looked like it could be their turnaround day, with Newfoundland on the schedule and the arrival of their coach Suzanne Bertrand, who had been coaching the Territories teams at the Canada Winter Games.
"I'm picking up the pieces,'' she said.
Nice goin' guys. The girl shows up here, something of a story in herself being a woman coaching a man's team, and all she gets is grief.
The polar bears have six more games to go.
But now they are 0-5, the only winless team left in the Brier. And now, they are the best bet to go 0-11 since this became a 12-team tournament.
Oh, other teams have gone Oh-For-The-Brier.
Quebec had William Hutchinson (0-9 in 1928), Rene Fortier (0-7 in 1933), Bobby Cream (0-9 in 1939), Charles Handley (0-9 in 1941), Pat Ross (0-9 in 1942) and Jack Bergmann (0-10 in 1959).
There's been the odd Spud Islander. Jim McIntyre (0-9 in 1936), Mac McLaine (0-9 in 1938) and G.J. Hayes (0-9 in 1948) have gone back to Prince Edward Island with the hole in the doughnut.
Four rinks from The Rock came and got rocked, the first of which was Nick Rockwell (0-10 in 1953). Other Newfoundland rinks to wear the collar were R.J. Kent (0-10 in 1954), George Giannou (0-10 in 1962) and Dave Pedley (0-10 in 1964).
But you get the idea. Nobody has lost 'em all since Pedley in '64. And nobody has gone 0-11.
"Our guys are getting pretty frustrated,'' admitted Peech, confessing to a little internal friction after the team lost its third straight, Sunday night. Part of it was that they had such high hopes. For Yukon/Northwest Territories.
Peech, who will go home with a scrapbook full of wonderful stuff from this Brier, including being a coverboy and a centrefold in this section, may not put this piece and subsequent stories in it. But it's not like they are Saskatchewan and are expected to be, like, in it.
Before it all started Peech told me he thought he might be the Territories' best chance yet.
"This is the best schedule we've ever had,'' he said of having the easy games early and Guy Hemmings, Jeff Stoughton and Russ Howard as his last three games.
Despite the schedule, coach Bertrand believes her boys will win one. "We're not thinking we're going to go 'oh' all the way through,'' she said.
"The people back home would like us to end up somewhere in the middle. They'd like us to have four or five wins. We always come here as an underdog. That goes with the territory - no pun intended,'' she said.
But now, for this team from the Yukon, just winning one game is everything.
"It's pride,'' she says.
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