Between a rock and a Herd place

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/01/2015 (4126 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Stan Pierre jumped out of bed Friday morning, slid into his curling duds and then headed out to chase the first of two prizes directly in his crosshairs.

The first: one of the four coveted berths in the 2015 Safeway Championship in Brandon next month that he and his Charleswood Curling Club crew — skipped by Kevin Brown and also supported by second Craig Nichol and third Paul Armstrong — began pursuing the moment lid lifted on the 127th Manitoba Open Bonspiel Thursday night.

And, not long after slipping off his slider and packing up his curling broom following a Friday morning loss to Deer Lodge’s Corey Thompson at Assiniboine Memorial Curling Club, Pierre was en route back to his office at Investors Group Field.

There, the University of Manitoba Bisons assistant head coach/defensive co-ordinator began chasing prize No. 2 — defensive end Michael West out of Terry Fox Secondary School in Coquitlam, B.C.

“I’m going to take him out for lunch and then do an hour or so of film work with him. And then,” said Pierre, with a grin, “it’s right back to the curling.”

Pierre is the first to admit that he and curling are an odd fit. He played football for the Bisons — he was a Canada West All-Star in 1991 — and has been coaching both at the high school and university levels for the better part of two decades.

But an ex-girlfriend curled and the game piqued his interest. And when Brown, who played for the Charleswood Hawks and then rec hockey with Pierre for a club called the Milner Ridge Sporadicators, decided to give up that sport, they were looking for an outlet to keep their competitive juices flowing.

They turned to curling, courtesy Brown’s dad, Charlie, who signed them up for their first MCA (now called The Manitoba Open).

And the two were absolutely hooked.

“I love it, I can’t give it up now,” said Pierre. “It’s a great sport. It might be hard to get introduced to it, but for somebody like me — who wouldn’t at all be attracted to curling unless I was led to it — that was done their competitive sports career this is a great option.

“You can compete in this sport until your 60s. And it’s fun… it’s not do or die. There’s the professional curling and then there’s the competitive stuff that we do, which is certainly a level below that, but it is still competitive. For us, the provincials is still a pretty big carrot.”

Now, to say Brown was a curling neophyte when he first stepped into the hack is a bit of a misnomer. His dad, now in his 70s, still curls twice a week. And his sister Joelle will be playing in next week’s provincial Scotties next week in Winkler.

But hockey was his game for years.

“I remember when my dad took us to our first MCA,” said Brown, a Grade 5-6 teacher at Carpathia School. “Stan and I were two non-curlers, but we had a great time. We played 10 games and fell in love with the game.

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“For me, it’s an interesting game because the people are so nice. It’s a competition, but you find yourself saying ‘good shot’ to the opposition sometimes. You never do that in hockey… you never say, ‘Hey, great goal! I’m glad you scored.’

“The competition is fun, but it’s not as important to me as the chance to curl with friends. It’s the social aspect of the game. I know that’s been a little bit lost in the competitive circuit, but Stan and I always joke that we’re trying to keep curling alive.

“And the (Safeway) berth? Well, that would be a bonus,” added Brown. “We’re going to give it a good shot, but make sure we have a good time along the way.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait