Another Robert Borden is coming to the capital
No, Robert Borden is not making a political comeback from the afterlife. However, Robert Borden will return to Ottawa for a Canadian curling championship and even add to the family’s Brier history.
It’s actually not confusing at all.
The man who served as Canada’s eighth prime minister between 1911 and 1920 — and after being knighted became Sir Robert Borden — died in 1937 and was buried in Ottawa’s Beechwood Cemetery. The other Robert Borden is a living, breathing, 29- year- old financial systems business analyst and the lead for the team representing the Northwest Territories in pre-qualifying for the Tim Hortons Brier at TD Place arena.
“I think it was my grandfather who went back and did a major f amily t ree thing, and I think there is some slight family relation in there,” Borden said in a telephone interview from his territorial- government office in Yellowknife. “It’s not a strong one, but there is something there through all these years.”
Borden’s uncle played for Don Strang’s Yukon/ N.W.T. entry in the 1979 Macdonald Brier at what was then the Ottawa Civic Centre. Rick Borden tells his nephew he remembers “horrible” ice conditions, old, mismatched rocks and the resulting impact those two factors had on shot quality, particularly early in the competition, “but he said it was a lot of fun. They lost a lot of games really close. He just had a great time there, so much that he went to the Brier the next year ( at Calgary) as a spectator.”
The 2016 Brier will be the fifth in a row for Borden and the 10th overall for his skip, Jamie Koe, as well as the third for third Chris Schille and the 11th for second Brad Chorostkowski.
An 0-11 record last year at Calgary relegated N.W.T. to pre-qualifying for the last available berth in the main draw this year. Koe’s rink, which earned its shot at Brier redemption by defeating Greg Skauge’s foursome 8-3 in an all-Yellowknife territorial final, faces Nunavut, Yukon Territory and Nova Scotia in a round robin March 3- 4 with the top two squads meeting in the prequalifying final on March 5.
“We have had some talks as a team,” Borden says. “I think we know how we want to prepare going in and what we need to do in order to get into the main event.”
The Brier, according to Borden, means everything.
“We kind of base our entire year around our playdowns and to be making it to the Brier and to be peaking for that time. That’s how we base our season,” he says.
“It’s just everything there. It’s the atmosphere there, it’s the crowds, it’s the cameras, it’s having your territory’s name on the back of your jacket and shirts. It’s just something a little bit different and special.”