Adam Casey won the Saskatchewan Curling Tour event in Swift Current last weekend, giving the 2018 SaskTelMen’s Tankard its fifth official team confirmed for the event.
Casey’s rink, which won the provincial Tankard last year, will join Estevan’s Brent Gedak and teams skipped by Ryan Deis, Scott Bitz and Jeff Hartung.
Also likely to join them will be current points leaders on the various tours like Colton Flasch, Steve Laycock, Josh Heidt, Jason Jacobson and whomever comes out of the three spots each for northern and southern playdowns on the weekend of Jan. 19th.Ìý
In the women’s tour, the teams near the top could have won the event, including the Candace Chisholm rink from Carlyle that includes Kristy Johnson. The room at the top is a little more crowded and as Amber Holland proved only a few years ago, the teams that do well at the provincial level can win the Brier. Three-time Marj Mitchell Award winner for sportsmanship Sherry Anderson is this year’s hope on the women’s side. The affable Anderson will undoubtedly do very well at the national level.
It hasn’t been so easy for the men’s division. The province has had some incredibly capable curlers, like Moose Jaw’s Pat Simmons and Laycock. They’ve even formed superteams with Simmons and Laycock for five years, and it didn’t work.
Simmons was the third with Kevin Koe and changed his province of residence to Alberta and won the Brier. Mark Dacey moved to Nova Scotia and won the 2004 Brier.
There hasn’t been a lack of talent on the men’s side, nor has there been a lack of opportunity for growth from the club level to the national tour level. We probably have more bonspiels and curling rinks per capita than most other places where the Brier champions come from. Yet the last team fro the province to win the Brier was Rick Folk in 1980 – well before some of the skips for the 2018 Tankard were born.
So the question is– why can’t we win at the Brier?
The closest we’ve come (apart from Simmons) would be the bronze won three years ago in Calgary by Laycock’s rink, which included Flasch at second at the time. For years Before that, it didn’t seem like we had a curse because the province’s best kept ending up in the finals. We didn’t have a finalist from this province since Brad Heidt (bolstered by third Mark Dacey) lost in 1995 to Manitoba’s Kerry Burtnyk. Dacey, back in Saskatchewan, clearly became cursed again.
Randy Woytowich lost in 1991 to Kevin Martin from Alberta and Eugene Hritzuk lost in the 1988 final to Pat Ryan.
This province has hosted the Brier more times that it’s won it since the corn brooms were tossed aside for synthetic materials. The Cleveland Browns have made more playoff appearances than Saskatchewan since 1980. Something’s not right here.
I don’t think there’s much question that the talent will be in Estevan Jan. 31-Feb. 4 at Affinity Palce to determine the best of the province. Whomever comes out of here, Saskatchewan will be one of the teams to watch at the Tim Hortons Brier in Regina in March
Historically, the run from 1980-2018 has been an outlier. Saskatchewan ranks fourth all time among Brier wins (thank you Ernie Richardson rink from the 1960s for your four titles), right behind Alberta, Ontario and Manitoba. The 38 years is longer than any Roughrider Grey Cup drought since the 1960s, longer than the time Grodie Howe put on skates in an NHL game until his last game, longer than any New York Yankees championship drought and longer than any provincial government has lasted.
How’s about whoever wins the Tankard this year just goes out and wins the Brier also. Why not, hey?
