Veteran Howard remains lord of the rings

Bob Weeks

TSN Senior Reporter

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To properly put into perspective just how long it’s been since Glenn Howard played in his first Tim Hortons Brier, consider that at that championship about a third of the field was still sweeping with corn brooms and everyone wore bulky knit sweaters.

Oh, and Howard had a full head of hair and a bushy moustache.

When the follicly challenged 54-year-old steps on to the ice at the Mile One Centre in St. John’s, he will be making his 17^th Brier appearance. His first trip came back in 1986, just a year after Northern Ontario skip Brad Jacobs was born.

“I don’t know what it was, but 17 hit me,” Howard admitted. “I know Russ [his brother and TSN broadcaster] has been to 14 and I got 15 a while ago which made it the most, but that didn’t mean that much to me. But 17, I don’t know what it was but it hit me. Seventeen times to the Brier is just insane. When I was growing up as a kid, I just wanted to get to one.”

It has been quite a journey for Howard, who will skip his Ontario rink of Richard Hart, Dave Mathers and his son, Scott Howard. He’s gone from a small town in central Canada to one of the game’s most successful and recognizable players in the sport.

“It’s amazing,” he admitted of his notoriety.” I probably get recognized more when I get away from my local area than I do at home. I can go in some random city in Canada and they know me. I walk through the airport in Toronto or Calgary and I usually get stopped for a picture or someone wants to chat, which is amazing. Now it’s not to the level of a professional athlete or a movie star, but it’s nice to be noticed.”

What’s remarkable is that when the Brier is over, the autograph sessions ended and the television interviews wrapped up, you can walk into the beer store in Midland and Howard will be ringing up a sale and helping you carry that case out to the car.

Like just about every other player in the Brier, he’s an everyday guy who just happens to be one of the best rock-tossers in the world. In many ways, that’s the appeal of curling and this event. For one week, the players will be celebrities across Canada. The next, back to the real world.

Still, the fame and celebrity of the curlers has increased over Howard’s tenure in the game. In years past, organizers wouldn’t use the recognizable faces to market the sport and events. But not any more. Curlers such as Howard, Team Canada’s Kevin Koe and Olympic gold medalists Jacobs and Brad Gushue are front and centre on signage everywhere in St. John’s this week.

“That’s the way the game should be,” stated Howard. “The players aren’t bigger than the game, but the organizers should promote the players. Without the players, there is no game. It’s good that there is more focus on the players, they’re more recognizable. I’m not up with the top teams any more, but people recognize me and my guys.”

That attention has also led to a change at the event for most teams. Early in his Brier career, Howard remembered visiting "The Patch," the massive watering hole attached to the competition that will be the most popular spot in St. John’s for the next week, regularly throughout the week. But that doesn’t happen as much these days for him or most of the curlers any more.

“It used to be back in the day, everybody would go all the time,” he remembered. “Today, it’s sporadic. You see teams some of the time, but not all the time. You used to get a little more privacy. You could walk around and do your thing. Now people come over and they want a picture, they want an autograph, which is fantastic, but for some of the players, they need their break, need their downtime and they’re there to win.”

The attention is just one of many alterations in the Brier Howard has seen over his long career. Others include the conditions and the competition.

In his early days, the ice was often horrid with bad rocks and hardly any curl. As well, the first half of his visits to the Brier were played under the old rules of curling with no Free Guard Zone. It was throw up a guard, peel, throw up a guard, peel. It wasn’t much fun, he remembered.

These days, the playing surfaces are exceptional and, so too are the teams playing on it.

“You used to look at the field and think there were three, four or five teams that could win it,” Howard stated. “Today, with the inception of Team Canada and the quality of the teams, there’s no more free space on the bingo card. It used to be that you’d look at the lineup and think there were teams you probably should beat. Today, there are none. The top teams are still the top teams, but the lower-ranked teams are real close. A couple of mistakes and you lose to those teams. It is way tougher.”

Howard knows he and his Ontario rink will be in tough this week. They’ve played a lighter schedule than most of the top teams and, for the first time in his memory, they failed to win an event. Still he feels the foursome is peaking at the right time, having played their best at the recent Ontario championship.

The four-time Brier champ realizes he is likely coming to the end of a great competitive career. He recently gathered all his Purple Hearts, the famed crest given for appearing in a Brier, and was going to create some sort of display for them. But he wants to wait until goes for the last time. The trouble is, every time he goes, he thinks that will be the last time. Until he adds to his collection one more time.

Still he has started to find other connections to the game for when that day does arrive. He recently signed on as the tactical coach for Eve Muirhead’s Scottish rink and will work with the squad through the 2018 Olympics. Right after the Brier, Howard will head to Beijing where the Muirhead team will play in the women’s world championship.

For now, however, he’s focused on trying to win the Brier for a fifth time and he’s looking forward to great week in St. John’s.