Sam’s book
Youth curling benefits from
The Richardson Family is curling royalty in Saskatchewan and there was no more beloved member than Sam Richardson, whose heart was bigger than any curling rock he ever threw.
Sam, a member of the famous Richardson clan that dominated curling in Canada in the late Fifties and early Sixties, passed away two years ago, but one of his last gifts to the sport was to see youth curling supported.
Sam’s wish has come alive this week at the Tim Hortons Brier where unsold copies of Sam’s popular 1999 curling book, Say It Again Sam!, written by Regina author Arnie Tiefenbach, is available to curling fans, with proceeds going to the Curling Canada Foundation For The Love Of Curling, which supports youth curling programs across Canada.
Curling fans can pick up one of the books in Evraz
Place, just opposite the doors leading into the Brier Patch.
The beautiful book, which details life in and beyond the Richardson curling dynasty, is available for $30, tax deductable, with the proceeds going to the foundation.
“It’s a really good book. It’s got a lot of good stories about Sam,” said Jim Richardson, Sam’s nephew and the son of Ernie Richardson, who skipped the family team to four Canadian and Scotch Cup titles.
The unsold books have been in storage for a number of years and several of the original investors wanted to abide by Sam’s wishes to help youth curling and decided to bring them out for this occasion.
“Sam was a very generous man,” said Richardson. “He had so many friends. I think everybody was his friend. He’d take the shirt off his back for anybody. The book details a lot of the sport dinner banquets that he would attend. The story goes he went to 1,300 banquets.
“Sam had a stroke and the thing that went first was his voice. He was a storyteller. He would have probably wished he was in a wheelchair and he couldn’t walk so he could have his voice.”
Richardson said it would have pleased his uncle so much to see the book going to a cause close to his heart.