Howard off to Brier final
Glenn Howard and Team Ontario beat North Ontario 8-6 at the Brier in Halifax on Friday.
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HALIFAX — Glenn Howard was signing and shaking his way through a crush of autograph seekers and open palms as Richard Hart chatted with reporters under the arena stands.
Both men were smiling, even though it had seemed for the longest time that their good fortune had come to an end, and that their Ontario rink would finally be upended.
They were ultimately able to overcome a series of uncharacteristic mistakes from Howard to edge an upstart team from Northern Ontario Friday night, booking passage to the final at the Tim Hortons Brier with an 8-6 win in Halifax. Howard, the skip, and Hart, his third, remain undefeated.
“When you say, ‘struggle,’ it’s funny — with a guy like Glenn Howard, it’s, like, two or three shots,” Hart said, chuckling. “It’s like, ‘the sky is falling,’ because Glenn Howard missed three shots in five ends or something like that. You have to take it with a grain of salt.”
Howard needed an open hit for two in the 10th end to beat Brad Jacobs, a 24-year-old who had become one of the event’s most surprising stories by leading Northern Ontario to a second-place finish in the round robin standings. Howard was trailing heading into the eighth end, mostly by his own doing.
In victory, the 47-year-old improved his record to 12-0 this year, maintaining Ontario’s chance to become the third straight team to finish undefeated at the Canadian men’s curling championship. Kevin Martin had led Alberta to flawless 13-0 records in the previous two years.
Jacobs still has a chance to play on Sunday, heading to the semifinal tonight, where he will face either Kevin Koe (Alberta) or Brad Gushue (Newfoundland and Labrador).
“We’re going to let this one go, almost immediately,” Jacobs said. “As soon as we’re done changing, we’re going to leave the locker-room and go focus on the next one.”
