The 1979

Macdonald Brier The Brier ('), known since 2024 as the Montana's Brier for sponsorship reasons, is the annual Canadian men's curling championship, sanctioned by Curling Canada. The Brier has been held since 1927, traditionally during the month of March. The w ...

, the

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

men's

curling Curling is a sport in which players slide #Curling stone, stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area that is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take t ...

championship was held from March 4 to 10, 1979 at the

Ottawa Civic Centre TD Place Arena, originally the Ottawa Civic Centre, is an indoor arena located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Opened in December 1967, it is used primarily for sports, including curling, figure skating, ice hockey, and lacrosse. The arena has hos ...

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

. For the second straight year, the total attendance for the week set a then-record where 89,081 attended the event. This was the last Brier where the round robin would determine the champion without a playoff. Team Manitoba, who was skipped by

Barry Fry Barry Francis Fry (born 7 April 1945) is an English former football player and manager. An inside forward, Fry scored a goal for England Schoolboys in front of nearly 100,000 supporters at Wembley and was seen as the best player in the team. H ...

captured the Brier tankard as they finished round robin play with a 10–1 record as they clinched the title with after the Friday night draw. This was Manitoba's twentieth title and the only Brier won by Fry. The Fry rink would go onto represent

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

at the 1979 Air Canada Silver Broom, the men's world curling championship in

Bern, Switzerland Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

where they lost in the semifinal to eventual champion

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. It would be the last Brier under the sponsorship of Macdonald Tobacco. This marked an end of an era, as Macdonald Tobacco had sponsored the event since the first Brier in 1927. Following the final draw, the head of Macdonald Tobacco, David Macdonald Stewart declared " r half a century, Macdonald Tobacco has followed an idea ... a dream to ... bring together Canadians, from all parts of the country and all walks of life, in a national sporting event. Curling was the ideal sport. It's been a wonderful experience. We've now seen the final chapter in 50 years of Canadian history". To commemorate the end of the Macdonald era, every living Brier champion skip at the time were invited to attend the Brier, and had their picture taken together. The lone surviving curler from the 1927 Brier, Emmet Smith (Northern Ontario) was also invited. The group of skips gathered before the final draw of the event for a special ceremony. The event was marred with slow ice conditions and bad rocks, which were borrowed from a local curling club. The rocks were mismatched and pitted which "reduced shotmaking to a guessing game." Part way through the week, organizers asked for the teams to vote on changing the rocks. The teams that favoured hitting, including the leading Manitoba rink opposed changing the rocks, as the mismatched rocks made draw shots more difficult than hit shots.

Teams

The teams were listed as follows:

Map of teams

Round Robin standings

''Final Round Robin standings''

Round Robin results

All draw times are listed in

Eastern Standard Time The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, and the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico. * Eastern Standard Time (EST) is five hours behind ...

( UTC−05:00)

Draw 1

''Sunday, March 4, 2:00 pm''

Draw 2

''Sunday, March 4, 7:30 pm''

Draw 3

''Monday, March 5, 9:30 am''

Draw 4

''Monday, March 5, 2:00 pm''

Draw 5

''Monday, March 5, 7:30 pm''

Draw 6

''Tuesday, March 6, 9:00 am''

Draw 7

''Tuesday, March 6, 2:00 pm''

Draw 8

''Wednesday, March 7, 2:00 pm''

Draw 9

''Wednesday, March 7, 7:30 pm''

Draw 10

''Thursday, March 8, 2:00 pm''

Draw 11

''Thursday, March 8, 7:30 pm''

Draw 12

''Friday, March 9, 2:00 pm''

Draw 13

''Friday, March 9, 7:30 pm''

Draw 14

''Saturday, March 10, 1:30 pm''

Awards

All-Star Team

The media selected the following curlers as All-Stars.BRIER INDIVIDUAL AWARDS & ALL-STAR TEAMS
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Ross G.L. Harstone Award

The Ross Harstone Award was presented to the player chosen by their fellow peers as the curler who best represented Harstone's high ideals of good sportsmanship, observance of the rules, exemplary conduct and curling ability. As of , this is the only Brier in which two players won the Harstone Award.

References

Line scores - Ottawa Citizen, pg 22 March 12, 1979

{{Canadian Men's Curling Championships

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...

Curling competitions in Ottawa

1970s in Ottawa