Base jumping, the taxman, Colleen and Hack

Canadian Curling News

Volume 26, Issues #2 and #3

March 1982

The winter of 1982 included a few notable moments.

The TV show Fame first airs but is quickly usurped by Canadian TV legend William Shatner and the launch of T.J. Hooker.

Both are dwarfed by the NBC debut of Late Night with David Letterman on Feb. 1. Dave’s first guest is Bill Murray.

Dwight Clark makes “The Catch” and Joe Montana leads the San Francisco 49ers to their first Super Bowl victory.

On March 25, Wayne Gretzky reaches 200 points for the NHL season. He will finish with 212, the highest total in history, until he breaks his own record four years later.

Argentina’s armed forces land on South Georgia Island, precipitating war with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands. Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges describes the war as “a fight between two bald men over a comb.”

The Oscar winner for Best Picture is Chariots of Fire, a movie to be missed. A must watch, however, is the SCTV spoof Chariots of Eggs starring Hall and Oates.

And what was notable in the world of curling 41 years ago?

First of all, Canadian Curling News published not one but two March issues. I’ll have to watch to see how many times this occurs as I continue to examine this archive of “Buried Treasure.”

The first-ever Scott Tournament of Hearts was won by Colleen Jones of the Mayflower Curling Club in Halifax, Nova Scotia. At age 22 she became the youngest skip to win the Canadian women’s championship. Colleen was joined by Kay Smith at third and her sisters Monica Jones and Barb Jones-Gordon at front end.

The event had a (checks notes) five-way tie for first place after the round robin! Nova Scotia, Dot Rose of Manitoba, Barbara Parker of B.C., Cathy Shaw of Alberta and Arleen Day of Saskatchewan all finished at 7-3. If Ontario’s Carol Thompson had beaten Quebec in draw nine it could have been a six-way tie. The rankings were determined by head-to-head records and Day defeated Shaw in the tiebreaker.

It’s interesting that the playoff was planned as a four-team semifinal but changed the following year to three teams (matching the format of the Labatt Brier).

Arnie Tiefenbach provides the coverage from the final game—back on page 13— and we can only guess who took the unflattering photograph of Val Squires. The cringeworthy choice by the editor to use this shot is surpassed by the eye-rolling caption. Comedy has come a long way since the early 80s.

The list of skips at the 1982 Brier was not a who’s who but a “who is that”? Al Hackner returned on a mission after losing the two previous Brier finals, including a dramatic defeat where Manitoba’s Kerry Burtnyk took three in the last end. Hackner’s competition aren’t notable (at the time) except for perhaps Brent Giles of B.C. and past champion Don Aitken of Quebec.

There is nary a carspiel winner in the lot, but they represent a time when winning a purple heart was an extensive battle through the club, to zone or regional playdowns and finally the provincial Tankard—and sometimes the underdogs gloriously prevailed.

The powerhouse provinces of Manitoba, Ontario and Alberta were fronted in 1982 by the legendary names of Mel Logan, Bruce Munro and Gary Morken. Wikipedia only has pages for nine of the 48 players, with four of them going to Team Hackner (with Rick Lang, Bob Nichol and Bruce Kennedy).

We note the wild hair belonging to a young Newfoundlander named Mark Noseworthy.

A young Brad Heidt makes his first appearance at this Brier. He will return to the 1995 Brier in Halifax, topping a murderer’s row of legendary skips (Hackner, Werenich, Folk, Martin) but lose to Burtnyk in the final.

And finally, on his third try, the Ice Man reaches the summit. The story continues for a second near-full page on page six, and boasts a third photograph.

Rick Folk was the last corn broom team to win the Brier in 1980. By 1982, “snowplowing” and “corner sweeping” were entering the curling lexicon and led the International Curling Federation (ICF) to create new rules, some of which still exist today. For example, the sweeping motion is to be side-to-side across the entire running surface and clearly finish outside the stone.

Warren Hansen even chimes in on sweeping rules, demonstrating his keen ability to scream “get off my lawn” even when he was under 40. The line that made me smile: “today’s greats are either too lazy or not in good enough shape to swing a corn broom for three games in one day.” The point I agree with is the loss of the “sound and rhythmic motion” and “ballet on ice” seen from two corn sweepers in unison. “Tragic” might be hyperbole, but the game did lose something when the push broom took over.

Leaping on the cover of the “first” March issue is John Base, winner of the Canadian men’s junior championship in Swift Current, Sask. I spoke with him for this article, because I had to know if he stuck the landing. He did, an 8.5. There was no risk of a kicked rock (a la Boots Labonte) because the final stone, thrown by Todd Gray of B.C., hadn’t reached the hogline yet; Base knew the shot was missed and took flight. John assured me the height on his vertical today is much lower, and safer.

Base went on to win the world juniors in Medicine Hat, Alberta the following season. John had a smooth, pure flat foot delivery, but unfortunately came to form in Ontario when the likes of Russ Howard, Ed Werenich and later Wayne Middaugh were at their peak. He did finally earn a purple heart, teaming with that other Ontario bridesmaid Mike Harris, and both reached their first and only Brier in 2004. (Note, Mike did win an Olympic medal in 1998, see the previous Buried Treasure column).

Finally, another great read from Larry Wood. I spoke with Paul Gowsell in episode 12 of the Curling Legends Podcast about the Canadian government challenging him to pay taxes from his curling winnings. The folly of this attempt (which years later was launched against Wayne Middaugh) is given a glorious skewering. Few scribes could eviscerate the hypocrisy or absurdity of a situation as Woody. “The feds giveth, and the feds taketh away.”

A reminder that the Curling Legends Facebook page features other excerpts from these issues, posted in the days before this story’s publication date. Here’s one of them … an advert congratulating the inaugural STOH champions.