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| Alberta’s Randy Ferbey and Ontario’s Wayne Middaugh headline the field for the inaugural Tim Hortons Brier, March 5-13 at Rexall Place in Edmonton.
It’s the 76th edition of the Canadian men’s curling championship and a record crowd will be on hand. More than 260,000 tickets have already been sold for the nine-day Tim Hortons Brier, eclipsing the record of 248,793 set in 2000 in Saskatoon.
Randy Ferbey and his Edmonton Granite Curling Club team of David Nedohin, Scott Pfeifer and Marcel Rocque will be seeking a fourth Brier title in five years and a 22nd triumph for Alberta, behind Manitoba’s leading 26 wins. They captured the first Nokia Brier in 2001 in Ottawa, then 2002 in Calgary and 2003 in Halifax, where they went unbeaten at 13-0. Last year in Saskatoon, they shockingly lost the Brier final, 10-9, when Nova Scotia’s Mark Dacey scored three points in the 10th end.
Middaugh, who resides in Victoria Harbour but represents St. George’s Golf and Country Club in Toronto, will be making his seventh Brier appearance but first since 2001 in Ottawa, when he finished third. Middaugh won the 1998 Labatt Brier in Winnipeg and Ford Worlds in Kamloops as skip and the 1993 Brier and Worlds, as second for skip Russ Howard. |
(Mar 3, 2005) -- Alberta’s Randy Ferbey and Ontario’s Wayne Middaugh headline the field for the inaugural Tim Hortons Brier, March 5-13 at Rexall Place in Edmonton.
It’s the 76th edition of the Canadian men’s curling championship and a record crowd will be on hand. More than 260,000 tickets have already been sold for the nine-day Tim Hortons Brier, eclipsing the record of 248,793 set in 2000 in Saskatoon.
This will mark the fifth time that Edmonton has staged the Brier (1954, 1973, 1987, 1999), joining Toronto, Calgary, Halifax and Saskatoon as the only cities to have hosted the event at least five times since the championship began in 1927 in Toronto. In 1999, Edmonton set an attendance mark of 242,887, only to be eclipsed the following year by Saskatoon.
Randy Ferbey and his Edmonton Granite Curling Club team of David Nedohin, Scott Pfeifer and Marcel Rocque will be seeking a fourth Brier title in five years and a 22nd triumph for Alberta, behind Manitoba’s leading 26 wins. They captured the first Nokia Brier in 2001 in Ottawa, then 2002 in Calgary and 2003 in Halifax, where they went unbeaten at 13-0. Last year in Saskatoon, they shockingly lost the Brier final, 10-9, when Nova Scotia’s Mark Dacey scored three points in the 10th end.
Ferbey, making his eighth Brier appearance, is the only five-time winner of the Brier and his team is the only one to win three consecutive Briers. In addition to victories as skip, Ferbey also played third for Pat Ryan when Alberta won the 1988 and 1989 Briers. Ferbey’s team also won back-to-back Ford Worlds titles in 2002 in Bismarck, North Dakota and 2003 in Winnipeg.
Middaugh, who resides in Victoria Harbour but represents St. George’s Golf and Country Club in Toronto, will be making his seventh Brier appearance but first since 2001 in Ottawa, when he finished third. Middaugh won the 1998 Labatt Brier in Winnipeg and Ford Worlds in Kamloops as skip and the 1993 Brier and Worlds, as second for skip Russ Howard.
Challenging the two favourites is Newfoundland and Labrador’s Brad Gushue, the 2001 world junior champion from St. John’s, who is making his third consecutive Brier appearance after finishing fourth last year in Saskatoon. Other skips with Brier experience, but not necessarily as skip, are British Columbia’s Deane Horning, New Brunswick’s Wade Blanchard, who returns after a 19-year absence, having skipped in 1986, Nova Scotia’s Shawn Adams, Prince Edward Island’s Rod MacDonald, Quebec’s Jean-Michel Ménard and Steve Moss of Northwest Territories/Yukon.
Making their Brier debuts are Manitoba’s Randy Dutiaume, Northern Ontario’s Mike Jakubo and Saskatchewan’s Pat Simmons.
CBC-TV and its digital channel, Country Canada, along with The Score will combine for round robin television coverage of this year’s Tim Hortons Brier. The top four teams advance to the Page Playoffs on Friday, March 11, featuring 1 vs 2 (winner to final, loser to semi-final; 3 vs 4, winner to semi-final, loser eliminated). CBC-TV will also air the semi-final Saturday, March 12 at 12 Noon MT (2:00 pm ET) and final Sunday, March 13, live at 5:00 pm MT (7:00 pm ET), the third consecutive year that the Brier final has been televised in eastern prime time.
The winner of the Tim Hortons Brier will then represent Canada at the Ford World Men’s Curling Championship, April 2-10 at the new Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria, British Columbia, seeking a record 29th men’s title (since 1959) for Canada.
The winner also earns a berth into the Tim Hortons Canadian Curling Trials, December 3-11 in Halifax, which will determine the teams to represent Canada at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin (Torino), Italy. Of the Brier teams, only Ferbey and Gushue have already qualified for the Trials.
New to the Brier this year is ‘additional cresting revenue’, which will be distributed as follows: $40,000 to each of the two finalist teams, $30,000 to third and $20,000 to fourth.
The popular Ford Hot Shots, the curling skills competition involving Brier participants, gets underway Friday, March 4 with the preliminary round from 1:00 – 4:00 pm local time. The playoffs take place Saturday at Noon, with the winner receiving a two-year lease on an all-new 2005 Ford Five Hundred SEL FWD, an approximate retail value of $13,600. The second place finisher will get a cheque for $3,000 while the third place finisher receives $1,500.
The Opening Ceremonies begin at 10:30 am Saturday, March 5, followed by the Ford Hot Shots playoffs. The first draw of the Tim Hortons Brier gets underway at 2:00 pm MT. Up-to-the-minute draw results will be available on the CCA website (www.curling.ca ).
Tim Hortons, the largest quick service restaurant chain in Canada, announced a three-year Brier sponsorship agreement with the Canadian Curling Association, along with a three-year option, last September, a package which also included title sponsorship of the 2005 Canadian Curling Trials.
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