‘A great player and a great teammate’

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This article was published 17/05/2021 (1584 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ryan Fry remembers hopping the boards and climbing the steps to reach the guy he needed to hug the most after winning the Canadian men’s curling championship eight years ago in Edmonton.

His proud papa, Barry Fry, was eagerly waiting with open arms.

“Probably the fondest recollection is when we won in 2013. While the rest of the team was celebrating and taking pictures, my first reaction was that I wanted to go into the stands and see my dad and mom (Judy), just to be able to share in something that he once did, back so long ago,” Ryan said Sunday.

Barry Fry, who captured the 1979 Manitoba and Canadian men’s titles, died Friday after a battle with cancer. He was 81.

“I made it one of my goals to win the Brier because I wanted to compete with what he achieved. As far as curling goes, that’s one of my best memories — giving him a hug,” said Ryan. “My dad was at every national curling event I ever played in.”

Ryan earned the 2013 national crown playing with Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie. Ont., A year later, his dad was in the rink in Sochi, Russia, when the Jacobs foursome stood atop the Olympic podium with gold medals draped around their necks.

“It’s gonna be a different situation playing in things without him. But I was lucky both my mom and dad were able to be at almost all of them,” said Ryan, who lives near Toronto and curls with John Epping.

He was still an infant when his dad skipped Bill Carey, Gordon Sparkes and Bryan Wood to provincial and national championships 42 years ago. The Winnipeg team finished in first place with a round-robin record of 10-1 in Ottawa (there were no playoffs back then) and went on to represent Canada at the world championship in Bern, Switzerland, claiming a bronze medal.

The man curlers locally and across the country called ‘The Snake’ also won a Canadian mixed title in 1973, three provincial senior men’s titles (1992, ‘94 and ‘95) and a masters’ championship (2001).

Barry’s name can be found three times in the Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame.

“He was just a great player and a great teammate,” said Wood, who tossed lead stones for the Brier-winning quartet. “We had a lot of fun off the ice as well. Curling’s still a social sport but not like it was back then. There’s quite a few good stories about Snake but most of them would need some editing.”

Wood had been to four previous Briers and was thrilled to help Barry get to his first. The crew from the Deer Lodge Curling Club got on terrific roll, losing only to Rick Folk of Saskatchewan mid week.

Barry was known for calling an aggressive game, regardless of the scoreboard. However, Wood said the team had success grabbing an early lead and then blasting everything out the rest of the way.

“We won a lot of low-scoring games playing defensively. It wasn’t Barry’s normal style. He liked to junk things up. But when we got ahead, we could clear rocks. That was long before the days (of the free-guard zone),” Wood said.

The two remained close over the years and played a lot of golf together.

In recent years, Barry, a retired sales representative, and Judy moved east to be closer to Ryan and his wife, Jess, in the Toronto area.

Ryan said his dad was his idol.

“My dad coached me through my junior career. We definitely butted heads on more than one occasion. Curling was always the conversation at the dinner table at our house, and it’s amazing what I picked up from him,” he said.

“He was a grinder … an old-school Manitoba hustler. He spent a lot of time with his buddies and he loved his family.”

 

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell