Nunavut happy to keep it fairly close
It was Nunavut’s first game at the Brier against a real professional curling team.
And it wasn’t 17-2.
It went into the books as 6-3. Brad Jacobs’ Northern Ontario team that won the 2013 Brier and then went on to bring back gold from the 2014 Olympics jumped to a quick 3-0 lead. Then Jacobs and crew heard moose calls when they extended it to 6-1.
After that, they took the foot off the gas, inserted fifth man Tanner Horgan and ended up in the 10th end before an ‘X’ went up on the scoreboard.
That’s hardly the humiliation that was expected for the territory responsible for the politically correct move that brought on this 16-team, two-pool Brier format.
“Hey, they took us to 10 ends. They did well,” said Jacobs of the so-called free space on the new Brier bingo card.
The Nunavut team is going to be a study here as it goes from relegation-round play to seven round robin games and likely a game against the last-place team in the other pool to decide 15th and 16th place.
After losing 9-3 Saturday in its opener to James Grattan of New Brunswick, a province that has never won a Brier, fans braced for lopsided scores galore as Nunavut braced for consecutive games against Northern Ontario, Manitoba and Ontario.
Two years ago in Ottawa, 37-year-old Canadian North community air service supervisor Wade Kingdon skipped the Nunavut team in the pre-Brier mini-tournament in Ottawa.
He didn’t exactly return home to the Iqaluit Curling Club — home of four of the only six sheets of ice in the territory — inspired to improve on his performance and return as a more competitive curler to improve on the after an 0-3 record against Nova Scotia, Yukon and Northwest Territory teams that outscored them 42-8. He quit. He didn’t curl last year. “I took a year off and actually wasn’t going to play again, but when I found out they were bringing in (Dave) St. Louis, I jumped back in because we had a history together,” Kingdon said. “He taught me how to curl back when I was younger.”
For 16 years, St. Louis worked in Iqaluit as recreation director.
He’s been back living in Ontario for several years, residing in St. Marys and working in Stratford.
With the one-import-per-team rule in place, Nunavut remembered he seemed to be able to curl a bit.
“They called me up and asked me if I wanted to be the import and skip Nunavut at the next Brier,” the 58-year-old St. Louis said. “Our expectations are realistic. We were happy we made it to the ninth end in our first game.”
OH, BABY, WHAT A BRIER
There are babies on the way for two B.C. curlers at the Brier. B.C. lead David Harper had only thrown eight rocks in the Brier in an opening draw 10-2 loss to Brad Gushue’s Team Canada when he headed to the airport to fly home to Kelowna, where wife Jessica had gone into labour. Third Jeff Richard’s wife is also expecting, with the potential to give birth this week, as well.