Everyone’s Fave Curling Guy

A few weeks ago we celebrated a milestone 60th birthday for Norwegian curling legend Paal Trulsen.

Today we salute another member of the fabulous 60 club … Canada’s Guy Hemmings.

Hemmings was a curling folk hero in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He skipped Quebec to two Brier finals in 1998 and 1999, losing both climactic matches—to Ontario’s Wayne Middaugh and Manitoba’s Jeff Stoughton.

His popularity with fans was such that Curling Canada signed him up to travel the nation and promote the sport, through the “Guy Hemmings Rockin’ The House Tour.” 

The tour visited 24 communities over three years, with Hemmings appearing at community schools, hospitals and curling facilities.

The latter included Hemmings as a keynote speaker at a curling club reception, albeit with a twist. Each curling member wanting to attend had to bring along a guest who was not a member, and preferably not a curler.

This was based on “the universal popularity Mr. Hemmings has with the fan of curling who, while enjoying our sport on television in record numbers, does not play,” said Curling Canada at the time.

“His broad appeal also includes an audience outside our traditional markets, a market critical to the health of Canadian curling clubs.”

For readers unfamiliar with the Hemmings appeal … you kind of “had to be there.” In his peak years his general appearance was somewhat disheveled, with a wild haircut, and his slide wasn’t the most technically proficient. Hemmings was in fact a latecomer to the sport—he started at 23.

He was also a prankster.

When the lights went out—literally—at the Winnipeg Arena at the 1998 Brier, Hemmings stealthily changed the scoreboard to favor his Quebec squad.

At the 2001 Brier in Ottawa, an advertising sign fell from the upper deck on to the ice, prompting Hemmings to don a football helmet.

Two years later in Halifax, the crowd roared again when Hemmings was spotted, mid-game, reading from a copy of “Curling For Dummies.”

Four years ago, we saluted Guy’s acknowledgment of his birthday on Facebook, for which he had changed his page settings to mark his age as … 92.

This year’s Facebook message acknowledges his fun-loving nature.

“Thanks everyone for your wonderful birthday wishes,” Hemmings wrote (translated). “It is now confirmed that there are huge communication problems between my 60 year-old body and my 20 year-old mind!

“The biggest source of discord regards the maturity level. Unfortunately there is no hope of reconciliation for the next few years.”

Last season, during the COVID-19 “bubble” curling championships, columnist Mike Fournier compared Hemmings to Laurie Ste-Georges, Quebec’s young female skip.

“Guy was fun to watch,” Fournier wrote. “He was funny. He got angry. He engaged with the crowd. You had to cheer for him. Somehow his team managed to be both fun and good.”

Hemmings can occasionally be seen at a championship event or speaking appearance. His prime curling involvement in recent years has been as a TV curling analyst for Quebec’s RDS (TSN).

Happy birthday, Guy.