Duguid done darned good in 1970 and ’71

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/03/2021 (1911 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winning 17 games in a row in two world curling championships is an accomplishment that deserves to be remembered some 50 years after it happened.

When Don Duguid and his team of Rod Hunter, Jim Pettapiece and Bryan Wood did that at the 1970 and 1971 Air Canada Silver Broom events, the foursome became our province’s greatest men’s curling team.

Before the 1969-70 curling season began, the team didn’t exist. Hunter, Pettapiece and Wood needed a fourth for their team at the Granite Curling Club, so Rod approached Duguid, who said yes, and the rest is history. Duguid had reportedly retired after winning the 1969 MCA bonspiel grand aggregate trophy and Henry Birks main event with a different Granite squad of Terry Braunstein, Gord Lowry and Paul Ridd.

The road to world supremacy began at the 1970 MCA bonspiel, where the team won the grand aggregate and earned a berth in the provincial Consols championship in Dauphin. Team Duguid rolled to the final where they ran into the surprisingly tough Bob Friesen team from Elmwood. The teams split the first two games of the best-of-three final with Duguid winning the rubber match 12-5 over the former Manitoba high school champion.  

Next up was the Brier at the Winnipeg Arena. Duguid lost to 1964 Canadian champion Lyall Dagg of B.C., but finished the round-robin at 9-1, which was good enough for the title. Hec Gervais from Alberta, who won in 1961, was second at 8-2. In the Silver Broom world championship played in Utica, N.Y., March 18-22, Duguid won seven in a row in the round-robin and beat Bill Muirhead of Scotland 11-4 in the final.

The next season, the defending world champion squad had a target on its back, starting right at the Granite, where the talent in group one was perhaps deeper than at the Consols and Brier. Duguid earned his Consols berth by beating George Laudrum of Strathcona in a city zone final. The Granite’s depth came to the fore in the MCA, where Braunstein won the grand aggregate and the main Eaton event over Lowry, and Duguid took the Birks over clubmate Bob Lemecha. Howard Wood Jr. and Larry Taylor also won bonspiel events. In the provincial championship at the Arena, Duguid beat Taylor 7-6 and then 9-8 in 13 ends to become the first back-to-back champion since Ken Watson of Strathcona in 1942 and ’43.

At the 1971 Brier in Quebec City, the Manitoba foursome ran into some tough competition from Saskatchewan’s Bob Pickering and Bill Tetley of Northern Ontario. The three teams finished round-robin play at 8-2 and the luck of the draw gave Duguid a spot in the final. Tetley then edged Pickering 10-9, but came up short against Manitoba, losing 11-5.

From March 16 to 21, eight countries played in the Silver Broom in Megeve, France. Duguid again won seven straight in the round-robin, but that year, four teams qualified for the playoffs. In the semi-finals, Canada beat Switzerland 9-5 and Scotland, skipped by James Sanderson, edged the U.S.A. 7-6. In the final, Canada prevailed 9-5. That gave the Winnipeg team 17 straight world championship victories.

What did each player bring to the team that made it so successful?

Duguid brought vast experience that included a trip to the Brier in 1957 with Wood Jr. and a Canadian championship in 1965 while throwing third rocks for Braunstein. He had also skipped his own team to a bonspiel grand aggregate in 1963. A fine shot-maker, Hunter’s smooth delivery, which earned him the nickname The Arrow, was admired by other curlers and fans. Along with their shot-making, Pettapiece and Wood contributed the strongest and best sweeping in the game.

Duguid retired from competitive curling following the 1971 victory to work as a curling analyst for the CBC, where he spent nearly three decades. Saskatchewan import Danny Fink took over as skip of the Granite team. The foursome qualified for the 1972 provincials, but lost twice to Orest Meleschuk of Fort Rouge. The Big O then beat Gary Ross of the Granite two straight to take the province. Meleschuk went on to win the Brier, as well as Manitoba’s third world championship in a row.

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