CALGARY – In a joint interview with Peyton and Eli Manning after Eli’s historic Super Bowl win, Peyton had the following to say when asked if he would like to face his brother in the Super Bowl someday:

“Yeah, I’d love to kick his ass in the Super bowl next year. And win the MVP – league and Super Bowl – the world needs to know who the best Manning is.”

Peyton aptly ducked when Eli playfully took a swing at his head.

The only NFL contest between these two brothers saw Eli win against his older sibling in a close match. If all of the Brier predictions about Ontario’s Glenn Howard hold true, then we will also see the younger Howard beat up on his older brother, New Brunswick’s Russ Howard, Tuesday morning in a truly historic athletic contest between brothers.

Will an Ontario win over New Brunswick show the world who the best Howard is? Will Russ take his loss gracefully as opposed to vowing vengeance? Can we count on fists flying at the end of tomorrow’s match?

No.

Probably.

Probably not. But you never know with brothers.

This battle has been talked about. The media here in Calgary have gone to great lengths to point out that the last time two brothers faced off as skips at the Brier was way back in 1942.

But The Curling News – a dandy little newspaper if I’ve ever seen one – has scooped everybody with a couple of key points, as published in the March Brier issue that came out last week, and which is in some supply – but dwindling fast – here at the Saddledome.

The first is that the last time brothers faced off at the Brier – including non-skips – the year was 1995, the place, Halifax. Jeff Ryan played third for the victorious Manitoba team skipped by Kerry Burtnyk. Pat Ryan, now country music superstar, played third for Rick Folk’s defending champions from Kelowna. Burtnyk finished with a 12-2 record while Folk was 6-5. In their 11th-draw collision, Burtnyk shaded Folk 7-6 in 11 ends.

The second TCN scoop is that the only other known Brier brotherly debate – apart from them Campbells, Gordon of Hamilton and Don of Vancouver, in ’42 – transpired at the 1970 Brier in Winnipeg. Hap Mabey of Moncton skipped the New Brunswick entry and brother Roger played lead for Les Bowering’s Newfoundland squad. Neither team was a title threat.

The third and final TCN chapter actually researches the various head to head battles that Russ and Glenn have had in the past decade or so. Thanks to this, additional context is available for those of you making picks on whom will whack whom. That makes this stuff gold!

And it’s not even a finite science, as curling record-keeping tends to falter out of the CCA domain. The TCN editor tells me Glenn Howard and Richard Hart were both sourced for info on these recent tilts… and that they both imagined a game against Russ – at a Slam in Port Hawkesbury – that never actually happened. I kid you not.

So here’s the excerpt from the story in the March 2009 issue The Curling News concerning recent Howard battles, some of which also made its way into Sunday’s daily Tankard Times.

And good luck with your picks…

For the record, there have been seven “recent” battles between the brothers since 2001.

Three occurred at the Players’ Championship (Russ winning twice in 2001 and Glenn winning in 2005 (photo above by Ted Richards, click to zoom in) and two took place at the former Gander, NL stop on the Asham World Curling Tour, the Don Bartlett Classic, in ’02 and ’04 (split results).

There was also a battle at the 2002 TSN Skins Game in Grande Prairie, and an instance in 2007 where Russ jetted to a spiel in Portage to spare for Randy Ferbey (both won by Glenn).

So the youngster holds a 4-3 advantage heading into the Saddledome.

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Tons of stuff today on John Morris vs Northern Ontario, cheap airline tickets to SoC events, one year out to 2010, the Alberta men’s preview, cuties in helmets and much more, but first…

Attention Winnipeggers: you and Jeff Stoughton (above) can skate together at the MTS Centre tonight, along with a pile of Olympians from other sports. It’s all part of Canada’s “Countdown Celebration Week” to the one-year-out celebrations of Vancouver 2010… which is, technically, tomorrow!

You can also wine and cheese with Stoughton, Jennifer Jones and others on Thursday night at McPhillips Street Station.

And here’s that much more we were talking about…

• Going to the major Canadian championship events this year? There’s nothing like live curling to boost your spirits in these economic times. You deserve it, and there are some cool airline seat sales on now to ease your pocketbook.

The info below assumes, of course, that the reader is based in Canada. There’s nothing to stop international visitors from going to a Brier or Worlds… in fact, we hear rumours of some high-profile women’s teams possibly making a jaunt through western Canada, should things go their way in national playdowns.

Anyway, we surfed the major Canadian air carrier websites and punched in a Toronto-Moncton flight for the opening weekend of the 50th anniversary (Ford) world men’s championship in April… cost each way: only 109 bucks in Canadian dollars.

Then we tried Ottawa-Calgary for the final weekend of the Tim Hortons Brier in March… $154 each way.

Then, just for fun, we checked out an event coming up way fast – the Scotties in Victoria, starting in a couple of weeks – and chose a quick, tricky, mid-week, three-day trip from Edmonton. True, the only direct flight offered was tagged at $460 each way. But, if one is willing to stop over in Vancouver along the way, the price plummets to a stunning $94 for each flight!

So here you go, people: go to the Season of Champions website to get your event tickets, and then visit either these guys or these guys to grab some cheap airfare.

Live curling (and partying) rocks!

• Al Cameron has the best preview available on the Alberta men’s provincial, which starts today in Wainwright – a triple-knockout format. Oh, and here’s the link to his Calgary Herald print story, in which John Morris puts his head in the lion’s jaws and suggests that it’s time for a Team Canada at the Brier, at the expense of Northern Ontario.

Hoo boy. Here we go again …

• According to Lyndon Little there’s a bit of a youth movement underway at the B.C. provincial. However, Kent Gilchrist points out that 58-year-old legend Rick Folk is currently leading the field, with fellow ancient mariner Dennis Graber close behind. Er, which is it, boys?

Meanwhile, here’s a story from yesterday on father beating son …

• The Nova Scotia Tankard – er, rather, the new Molson Scotia Cup – is underway today. And in these two preview stories from the Chronicle-Herald and Metro News, it’s all about the 2007 and 2008 runner-up, Shawn Adams …

• Martin Ferland is another big name gunning for the Quebec title …

• Some Swiss stories for you today; this one talks about a journalist’s first go at the sport, and this one summarizes the anniversary bonspiel at Wildhaus …

• Last week we told you about Rocks and Rings. This week, two very curling-committed people at Scarboro Golf Club – Judy Conquer and all-star seniors thrower Roy Weigand – arranged the first of five on-ice programs for local kids, and we’ve got the video, here and here… man, we love cuties in helmets!

• Speaking of cuties, a news story on Little Rockers winning a tournament? Doesn’t happen very often, but we like it …

• Japan’s big Karuizawa International bonspiel – summary here – was won by BC’s Bob Ursel, while Quebec’s Eve Belisle finished fourth. There was tons of media there, but of course, they focussed solely on their beloved Japanese national women’s team …

• Whad’Ya Know? This Wisconsin Public Radio show went curling in Stevens Point, the hometown club of USA Curling (curling segment starts at 18:15) …

• Organizers of the 2010 Scotties are pushing various levels of government for event support, but local city council has rejected a planned expansion to the venue in time for next year’s shootout …

• And finally, they want your ice plant! Yes, it’s true, the Dallas/Fort Worth Curling Club is looking for a used “ice plant chiller thing”… so can anyone help these folks out?

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Which is more interesting – news that Pat Ryan is a competitor at next month’s Ontario men’s provincial, or news that Pat Ryan could be Canada’s next country music superstar?

Both newsbits fall within our sphere of interest – and yours – so we shall tell both tales.

Today, his curling.

After winning gold for Canada at the World Seniors in Finland last March (WCF photo above by Bob Cowan) the three-time Brier champion and two-time world champion turned his attention back to his job in Toronto, for which he has maintained a residence in the city for the past couple of years.

He soon discovered the Brampton Curling Club, the west-end facility which doubled for Long Bay in the curling movie Men With Brooms, and the place where Wayne Middaugh and cousin Peter Corner started their curling careers in the early 1980s.

And Ryan was soon discovered by Corner, the man who has won Briers, Worlds and provincial Tankards at both front end and skip positions.

After a few conversations Corner made further contact last fall, and Ryan became the alternate for the latest version of Team Corner… a squad which we revealed in yet another TCN exclusive last summer.

So why would Corner call on Ryan, you might ask?

Corner’s fiancee happens to be expecting a child very soon… specifically, at some point during the 2009 TSC Stores Tankard, for which he and teammates Graeme McCarrel, Ian Tetley and Brad Savage qualified during playdowns earlier this month.

So Ontario Brier hopefuls like Glenn Howard, Mike Harris, Rob Lobel and others may be shocked to see the slick tuck slide of the Alberta (and British Columbia) curling legend barrelling toward them sometime between February 2 and 8 at the Woodstock District Community Complex.

Well, not too shocked… after they read this posting at The Curling News Blog.

So, is this curling Hall of Famer ready to compete in another Brier, this time representing… Ontario?

“I don’t know about that,” Ryan laughed.

“All I know is I’m throwing rocks like crazy. I haven’t done much curling this year.”

Paired with longtime Middaugh third McCarrel at the back end, Ryan isn’t sure what the squad’s no-Corner lineup would be. After all, despite all the pre-planning of Corner’s potential family requirements, Ryan might not end up seeing any action.

“We’ll have to see what the team, and Graeme, think about that,” said Ryan.

“Graeme might want to throw the brick. He might want me to call the game. We’ll have to see if we even get the opportunity.”

In recent years, Ryan called the game with Jim Cotter throwing final stones on a B.C. team which, you may recall, just missed the playoffs at the 2005 Olympic Trials in Halifax. Cotter now throws third stones for Kelowna skip Bob Ursel.

Ryan says he enjoyed his first-ever post-game table talk with Corner last year.

“We really enjoyed each other’s company,” recalled Ryan. “We talked about curling and life, all the time commitments.

“We’d never really had a chance to sit and talk before. We’d always been competitors.”

Longtime curling fans will recall the Brier battles of 1993 and 1994. Corner played lead for Ontario’s Russ and Glenn Howard (plus Middaugh) and Ryan played third for BC’s Rick Folk. The Howards beat Folk/Ryan in the 1993 Brier final in Ottawa and then the Folk/Ryan combo beat the Ontarians in the 1994 final at Red Deer. Both teams went on to capture the world titles.

The team relationships were tense. There were accusations of rock tampering before one Brier playoff game, and another story tells how an enthused B.C. fan – the “Bleacher Creature” – made the mistake of whooping his way into the Ontario dressing room shortly after the ’94 final. He got a cup of water doused over his head.

Ryan said that he and Corner didn’t bother to rehash those days.

“We mostly talked about where we are right now, and it’s really nice to be able to connect with really great players who are of the same mindset,” said Ryan.

“And Pete’s team has world champions on it, and they all want the same things we do. They’re not going crazy with the sport but they still want to keep their hand in it, and they still want to make it to the Brier.”

Ah, the Brier. And this brings us to Pat Ryan: budding country music star.

But more on that coming soon.

Do you like what you’ve read here? Please do support efforts like this by subscribing to The Curling News through this page, or by calling 1-800-605-CURL (or 905-887-1261 internationally). We print stories you cannot find on the blog, and we’ll soon tell you more about that, too …

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The former third man for Rick Folk in 1980, Brier and World Curling Champion Ron Mills passed away Monday at age 65, of cancer.

In 1980 Folk, Mills, and the dominant corn-sweeping Wilson brothers, Tom and Jim, brought Canada its first world curling championship since 1972. The squad were the ones to finally break “The Curse of Labonte” which had been delivered that fateful year (’72) in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

This was also Saskatchewan’s last Brier championship title.

In later years Mills was giving back to curling in a big way. He was one of Canada’s few Level Four coaches, and he was also the head statistician for the first five Continental Cup of Curling events. He was sorely missed at the sixth edition this past week in Camrose, as word of his poor health made the rounds.

An obit story from his hometown of Saskatoon can be found here.

Photo courtesy Saskcurl. Ron Mills is second from left.

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