Memories flood back for ’92 champs

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This article was published 05/03/2018 (3067 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

REGINA — The old barn in Regina holds a whole lot of nostalgia for the coaches of the two Manitoba-based curling crews at the Brier this week.

Stepping inside the 6,000-seat Brandt Centre triggered a flood of memories for Chris Neufeld, the longtime mentor of Mike McEwen’s Fort Rouge foursome — here as Team Wild Card. 

And Dan Carey, coach of Reid Carruthers’ Team Manitoba, admits he felt it, too.

The two men got to share the biggest and brightest highlight of their curling careers at the building formerly known as the Agridome 26 years ago, winning a Brier with the late Vic Peters.

The Hall of Fame Peters foursome, with Carey tossing third stones, Neufeld at second and Don Rudd at lead, went 9-2 to earn a bye to the 1992 final and then pulled off a shocker, slipping past Ontario’s Russ Howard 4-3 in an extra end.

“It brings back some great memories, that’s for sure,” Neufeld said Monday.

“We weren’t favoured at all. That was definitely Howard and his great team. At that time, I think he had the best team in the world — (Peter) Corner (lead), (Wayne) Middaugh (second), Glenn (Howard at third) and himself. Those guys were great, great players.

“It was before the days of the free-guard zone, so we could hang in there for a while and in the end we wound up winning. We had a very good week.”

Carey said when the Carruthers and McEwen teams had their practice sessions Friday, a day before the 2018 championship began at the temporary four-sheeter, he was struck by the sentimentality of the moment.

“Chris was out on (sheet) B and we were on C, right beside each other. We both just kind of looked at each, looked around and gave a little nod and a smile,” said Dan, whose daughter, Chelsea, won the 2016 national Scotties. “It was a cool moment for us. It’s all very familiar. It didn’t seem like it had been 26 years ago since we had that success.

“Back then in Manitoba, I wanted to win the province. I didn’t really know what going to the Brier meant. We knew we could play with those guys and we knew we might never get back, so we were going to do everything we could and not get distracted.”

The local hopefuls that year, Brad Hebert’s Regina team, weren’t much of a factor, so the majority of fans threw their support behind the fellows hailing from one province to the east.

“That year, Saskatchewan wasn’t involved in any kind of a playoff scenario and we got to be kind of the crowd favourites, so it was a lot of fun,” said Neufeld, whose sons, Denni, 37, and B.J., 32, have performed on McEwen’s world-class crew for over a decade.

Russ Howard immediately grinned when asked to search his memory bank for thoughts on the ’92 final.

“I remember all of it. That (1991-92) team of ours was maybe the best in the history of curling. We only lost six games that year (out of about 100) and got all the way to the Brier final and (Vic) beats us in an extra end,” said the legendary skip, now a TSN curling analyst.

“I said to my wife right after that if I was every going to lose the Brier final, it would be to Vic Peters. They were such good guys, really competitive guys. They wanted to go right through you to win, but when you made a good shot, they said, ‘Good shot.’ Great guys… we lost Vic way too soon.”

Just two weeks later, the Winnipeggers were off to the worlds in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, and the hot streak continued. Peters was on top of the heap (7-2) after a solid round robin but took a tumble in the semi-finals, losing 4-3 to Scotland’s Hammy McMillan.  

The Peters squad returned to the Brier a year later in Ottawa and went 8-3 to finish locked in a four-team, first-place tie with Howard, B.C.’s Rick Folk and Rick Lang of Northern Ontario.

But the Manitobans were forced into a tiebreaker situation, despite defeating the other three teams with identical records, and fell short of the playoffs — a bit of trivia that still burns Manitoba curling history buffs.

In 2005, the quartet was inducted into Manitoba’s Curling Hall of Fame.

Neufeld, Carey and Peters won a third Manitoba championship in 1997 with Scott Grant at lead. Nine years later, the Peters-Neufeld partnership produced a provincial senior crown, with Doug Harrison and Doug Holmes aboard.

Peters’ family, friends and the curling world lost the legendary Granite Club curler two years ago to cancer. He was 61.

“Being here, these are the moments when you think about Vic,” Neufeld said. “I think about him when I watch big events, I think about him when I watch his daughter (Liz Fyfe, most recently with Team Kerri Einarson) play. He was just a great guy to be around, whether you were curling or golfing or whatever you were doing with him.”

Carruthers, meanwhile, is hoping to spin some karma out of the Regina rink. Seven years ago, he won a world men’s crown here, playing second for Winnipeg’s Jeff Stoughton.

After posting a 10-1 record through the round robin, Stoughton — with Charleswood teammates Jon Mead, Carruthers and Steve Gould — downed Scotland’s Tom Brewster in the final.

jason.bell@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @WFPJasonBell