Revisiting the Meleschuk legend

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This article was published 07/03/2017 (3289 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Orest Meleschuk hasn’t returned to the scene of his greatest triumph.

Some might find that puzzling, considering 45 years ago he spent a week here and almost didn’t leave.

Meleschuk, a product of Lac du Bonnet, skipped his Manitoba team to the Canadian men’s curling championship in 1972, the last time the Brier was held in St. John’s.

His Fort Rouge foursome of third Dave Romano, second John Hanesiak and lead Pat Hailley almost ran the table, posting a 9-1 round-robin record to take the title. The only blemish was a defeat to runner-up Bill Kent of Quebec, who finished 7-3.

According to local folklore, Meleschuk, long ago dubbed “The Big O,” and his crew celebrated in epic fashion.

“You want to hear the Orest Meleschuk legend, from the city of legends, do you?” asked Carl Strong, a lifelong St. John’s resident and the lead for Newfoundland skip Fred Durant in ’72. “When Manitoba won the Brier, a party broke out. And Meleschuk’s guys could party with the best of them. It went long into the night — in fact, it really didn’t stop till the next day.

“The host committee was able to get three of them to the airport, but not Orest. Everyone in town was Orest’s buddy, he loved all Newfoundlanders and was going to stay with us forever. He was not going to the airport.”

Supposedly, Romano, Hanesiak and Hailley were already back in Winnipeg when Meleschuk was convinced — 48 hours after the last rocks were tossed — that he should probably head home.

“The organizing committee got him convinced there was big party for him and there was a motorcade waiting, and they finally got him to the airport. When they got him to the Air Canada counter, Air Canada said there was no way he’s getting on a flight,” said Strong, a volunteer statistician and official here, and the father of Heather Strong, a 12-time provincial Scotties winner.

“He ended up staying another night here. The third day, they finally got him home. That’s the legend.”

Reached by phone in Selkirk, Meleschuk, who will be 77 next month, offered little to dispel the myth.

“On our way there, we actually hit fog when we were about to land in St. John’s and we had to turn back to Montreal and then to Toronto to stay overnight,” he recalled. “It took us two days to get there — and then it took me about four days to get home.”

Seems he was Screeched in, not fogged in.

“Those people like to party, and I used to do that pretty good in those days,” he said.

Those were different times, concedes Meleschuk, whose team went undefeated at the provincials in Virden to qualify for the nationals at Canada’s most easterly city. Back then, curling was still associated with smoking and drinking, players gave little attention to their diet and certainly didn’t hit the hotel gym in the morning.

“We had our workouts in the Brier Patch,” he joked.

A Brier title was — and to many, still is — the most coveted curling prize of them all. Meleschuk remembers intense battles on the ice and the passion of fans at the since-demolished Memorial Stadium.

“It was great curling, and it was a good atmosphere. I think there was like 2,500 or 3,000 people at every game,” he said. “We were playing two games a day and didn’t see much of the town. The waterfront was beautiful and there were a lot of old, historic buildings. I remember that.”

Don Duguid’s hall-of-fame team from Winnipeg won Canadian and world titles in 1970 and ’71, and Meleschuk’s team was widely considered the favourite to continue the Manitoba tradition of excellence in St. John’s.

Hockey Night in Canada broadcaster Bob Cole, who skipped Newfoundland-Labrador at the ’71 Brier in wintry Quebec City, told a reporter a few years ago he had picked Meleschuk as the early favourite in ’72.

“We had played Orest’s team a few months before in a bonspiel out west,” Cole said. “When we heard that Meleschuk came out of Manitoba, we were like, ‘Oh-oh’ … we had seen him play and we knew he had a great team.”

Meleschuk’s team would go on to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany and claim the Silver Broom world men’s championship — an event that featured one of the most famous moments in curling history.

Meleschuk faced the United States with the championship on the line. U.S. skip Bob LaBonte, thinking his team had won the game in the 10th end, leaped in celebration and accidentally kicked a stone. The Canadians were awarded a game-tying deuce to force an extra end, setting the stage for Meleschuk’s perfect draw to the button that LaBonte couldn’t dislodge with his last rock.

But Meleschuk, who would return to the nationals in 1989 in Saskatoon and finish fourth, called the ’72 Brier win his crowning achievement in curling.

“I would definitely say St. John’s was the highlight. The teams were better there than the worlds,” said Meleschuk, who played in 142 career games at the provincials, third-most behind only Jeff Stoughton (180) and Kerry Burtnyk (160). “When you started out curling in those days, winning the Brier was the big motivation. You wanted to be the king of the pile in Canada. The Brier was a big deal, as it is today.

“St. John’s will always be special. I can always say I’ve been from one end of the country to the other.”

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