Gould to join exclusive club in curling hall

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This article was published 04/03/2014 (4470 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Steve Gould will become part of an exclusive group on May 4 when he is officially inducted into the Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame.

Gould will join Bryan Wood as a male curler honoured for his accomplishments as a lead. When you scroll down the list of individual inductees since the first class was inducted in 1987, you find plenty of skips with familiar names — Ken Watson, Bill Walsh, Terry Braunstein, Don Duguid, Kerry Burtnyk, Jeff Stoughton.

A few honoured members, such as Andy McWilliams and Ray Turnbull, are associated with the lead position but are best-known for their exploits at other positions.

McWilliams, who was inducted in 1991, curled on two Canadian championships teams with Walsh, but he curled second in 1952 and lead in 1956. Turnbull, who was honoured as both a curler and builder in 1992, liked to portray himself on TV as a lead. He did throw lead stones for Braunstein’s Canadian champions in 1965 but his first days in the limelight came as second on the young Granite team skipped by Braunstein that won the provincial championship in 1958. Jack Van Hellemond was the lead.

Gould and Wood match up well as the most successful male leads in Manitoba curling history. Both have two world championships on their resumes. Gould won with Stoughton in 1996 and 2011, while Wood played with Duguid, Rod Hunter and Jim Pettapiece when the Granite squad won back-to-back world titles in 1970 and 1971.

Gould curled lead for Manitoba teams skipped by Stoughton in the Canadian championship a total of six times. In 1975, with Hunter skipping and Wood at lead, the pair won another provincial title with Mike Riley and Doug Holmes. Wood’s fourth title of the decade came in 1978 as the lead for Doug Harrison’s Heather team.

Wood added a fifth provincial in 1979 with Barry Fry’s team from Deer Lodge. With Bill Carey at third and Gord Sparkes at second, the foursome went on to win the Canadian championship and that team will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in May for its accomplishment. The second team to be honoured is the 1978 Canadian women’s champions from the Stony Mountain club. Cathy Pidzarko (now Scalena) skipped that squad with her twin sister Chris at third, Iris Armstrong at second and Patti Vande at lead.

Gould is the only individual curler being inducted this year, but Mitch Tarapasky and Hans Wuthrich will be recognized as builders. Tarapasky served on the board at the Victoria club for 24 years. He spent 12 years as an MCA director and five on the Canadian Curling Association board.

When you think of ice makers, you think of Wuthrich. He’s been the head technician at international events going back to 1993 and has been responsible for the ice at 37 provincial championships. He had a good reason for missing the media conference on Feb. 18, when the induction class of 2014 was announced.

He was in Sochi, Russia, making the curling ice at the Winter Olympics.

Memories of Sport appears every second week in the Canstar Community News weeklies. Kent Morgan can be contacted at 204-489-6641 or email: sportsmemories@canstarnews.com