Brier fuels curling craze

By Heather Mallows

The Nokia Brier took to the ice March 3 – 11 to determine the Canadian Men’s champion.

The publicity from the tournament is expected to boost interest in Centretown’s curling clubs. “Our club saw an increase after the last Brier in 1993,” says Edgar Simpson, president of the Rideau Curling Club on Cooper Street, which has 550 members.

“It also gets kids more interested in curling so I think we’ll see an increase next year in our junior programs,” he says.

At the Ottawa Curling Club on O’Connor Street, manager Emile Tougas says although his club has reached capacity with 576 members, he too has noticed a boost in interest. “It’s increased awareness of curling in the community,” he says. “We’ve definitely had more rentals.”

It is the first time Ottawa has hosted the tournament since 1993.

Over the course of nine days, thousands of curling enthusiasts passed through the Civic Centre gates.

Jeff Timson, a media director at the Brier, says attendance was excellent, with about 6,500 people attending each draw. The Civic Centre has a capacity of 9,836.

He attributes the high attendance to the fact that anyone can enjoy curling. “It’s an average Joe’s game.”

A visit to the Rideau Curling Club proves Timson’s theory. There, a group of four known as the HungryMen have just hit the ice. They have been curling as a team for the last four years.

“It all started when we went up to a tournament in Blind River, Ont., even though we had never curled before,” says HungryMan Scott Smith.

Needless to say, the team didn’t fare well at the tournament but a love of the game developed.

And the name HungryMen? “We had the Hungry Man’s special for breakfast that morning,” explains Smith. The name — and the sport — stuck.

Smith says anyone can enjoy curling. “It’s an easy game to learn and a really hard game to perfect,” he says. “This is a sport that the average guy or gal can be good at. There’s not a lot of sports like that out there.”

“And,” adds Smith as he lifts up his plastic cup. “You can bring your beer on the ice.”

Simpson also agrees. “You don’t have to know curling to be able to go to the Brier and feel the excitement.”

Curling seems to have caught on in Centretown clubs, yet it wasn’t evident when the Brier was in town.

“It’s been a very quiet week,” says Tougas. “Last night, ten games were scheduled but only two showed up.”

The Rideau Curling Club was also fairly deserted. Simpson says the club was “basically shut down” because a lot of the members – about 150 of them – were volunteering at the Civic Centre all week. The rest were watching the games.

All weekly draws at the Rideau except one, were canceled.

As for the HungryMen, the whole team planned to go to the Brier on the last weekend. “Well, to the Brier Patch anyway,” jokes Smith.