Sask was a curling power long ago in a galaxy far, far away

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Imagine sending Ernie Richardson, Rick Folk, Garnet Campbell, Harvey Mazinke and their rinks to the same Brier, representing Saskatchewan again and vying for more Canadian men’s curling championships.

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Or put those Tankard-winning skips together on an all-star team. There’s a foursome that would certainly end this province’s unbelievable, 45-year Brier winless drought. Four, five and six decades after their glory days, they would still likely have been capable of winning despite curling’s evolution to time clocks, a no-tick rule, high-tech push brooms and the five-rock, free-guard zone.

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Every spring, curling aficionados are reminded that Saskatchewan — once a hotbed for the country’s best male curlers — hasn’t won a Brier since Folk’s victory in 1980. That’s a long time ago and it’s getting tiresome. Alberta rinks have won 16 times since then!

If only this province had been able to team up Bob Pickering, Randy Woytowich and Eugene Hritzuk, each of whom wore Saskatchewan colours as runners-up, and thrown in Pat Simmons, a Saskatchewanian who won back-to-back Briers with an Alberta squad in 2014 and repeated in 2015 while throwing skip stones for Team Canada. That would also be a great team.

Imagine having both of those stellar Saskatchewan squads in the Brier. Why not? Saskatchewan has two teams at the Montana’s Brier being played right now in Kelowna. And one of them, led by Manitoban Mike McEwen, looks capable of ending Saskatchewan’s horrific winless streak. McEwen earned a playoff spot and was undefeated heading into the final day of round-robin action in Kelowna, with one of the victories coming against Team Saskatchewan-Kleiter, a hard-working group with a bright future, who narrowly missed the playoff round.

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Rylan Kleiter, Joshua Mattern, Matthew Hall and Trevor Johnson won this year’s provincial playdowns after being the runners-up to the 2024 champions — McEwen, Colton Flasch, Kevin Marsh and Dan Marsh. They meet each other occasionally at Saskatoon’s Nutana Curling Club, making each team better in the process. While curlers across the country are getting better, helped by better technology and coaching, there are also fewer curlers to draw from because there are fewer clubs. Consider that Regina used to have seven clubs, but only the Caledonian and Highland remain.

McEwen, who was invited to join his Saskatoon-based rink last season, has been trying to win a Brier with numerous teams. McEwen truly earned his honourary Saskatchewan citizenship by skipping his team to the final of last year’s Brier in Regina, where the home-province favourites lost to six-time champion Brad Gushue, who is from Newfoundland.

Curling Canada’s residency rules allow out-of-province players to join rinks vying for provincial and national championships, an exemption that has allowed Gushue to earn legendary status. That also explains why Simmons and Ben Hebert, a powerhouse lead who has earned four titles with different teammates on rinks not based in Saskatchewan, have won Briers representing provinces other than their own.

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In addition to all those rule changes plus the residency rule, the Brier field has also expanded to 18 teams. That includes 10 provinces, Northern Ontario, three territories, the defending champion known as “Team Canada” and the top three teams from tour rankings. McEwen place third in the rankings, behind Alberta’s Brad Jacobs and leader Matt Dunstone, a Manitoba product who also tried skipping a Saskatchewan squad to a Brier victory in 2020 and 2021. Didn’t work.

Winning an 18-team tournament with a convoluted playoff format is mathematically more difficult than winning an 11-team, round-robin from the early 1960s, when Richardson’s foursome claimed four titles in a five-year span..

So many great male curlers have come out of this province, it’s simply unfathomable that a Saskatchewan-based rink hasn’t won a Canadian championship since Folk’s Saskatoon-based squad in 1980. That’s so long ago that Folk and his teammates — Ron Mills plus brothers Tom and Jim Wilson — were the last foursome to exclusively use corn brooms while winning the Brier. Folk subsequently won another Brier, in the post-corn era of 1994, after he moved to B.C. and represented his new province.

While watching last year’s Brier, Folk and Richardson were unabashedly cheering for Saskatchewan. And Gushue admitted earlier in the week that he secretly cheers for Saskatchewan, if his team doesn’t win the event. Too bad it takes more than karma to win a Brier.

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