The 1989

Labatt Brier The Tim Hortons Brier, or simply (and more commonly) the Brier (''french: Le Brier''), is the annual Canadian men's curling championship, sanctioned by Curling Canada. The current event name refers to its main sponsor, the Tim Hortons coffee and ...

, the Canadian men's curling championship, was held from March 5 to 12 at the

Saskatchewan Place SaskTel Centre (formerly Credit Union Centre, and originally Saskatchewan Place; informally also known as ''Sask Place'') is an arena located in the Agriplace Industrial Park, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. With 15,195 permanent stadium seats ...

Saskatoon Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Hig ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

. Pat Ryan of Alberta defeated Rick Folk of British Columbia to win his second Brier.

"The Ryan Express"

Pat Ryan's team was well known for its hitting style. Once they got the lead, the team would just peel off every opposition stone to win the game. This defensive strategy was heavily criticized for being boring. Whenever Ryan switched to this style of play, fans began shouting "bor-ing". However, the strategy worked for Ryan, who won the Brier. The score of the final game (3–2), remains the lowest total score for a final game in Brier history. This caused the implementation of the

free guard zone Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding ...

a few years later to cause more offence in the game.

Howard loses his voice

Also of note at the 1989 Brier was Ontario skip Russ Howard's loss of his voice. Howard was nicknamed "the Wounded Moose" for the way he screamed in the first few draws of the event. However, he would lose his voice by Tuesday, and could barely speak. So, the team opted to use Walkie-talkies to communicate with their skip. This went unnoticed until their walkie-talkie signals jammed the official's walkie-talkie signals. The Canadian Curling Association (CCA) was quite upset about the matter, but Howard pointed out there was nothing in the rules against their usage, and insisted on continuing to use the walkie-talkies. So, the CCA decided midway through the event to ban the use of walkie-talkies, marking the first time that the rules had been changed in the middle of a tournament.

Teams

Round-robin standings

Round-robin results

Draw 1

Draw 2

Draw 3

Draw 4

Draw 5

Draw 6

Draw 7

Draw 8

Draw 9

Draw 10

Draw 11

Draw 12

Draw 13

Draw 14

Draw 15

Playoffs

Semifinal

Final

Statistics

Top 5 player percentages

''Round Robin only''

Team percentages

''Round Robin only''

References

{{Canadian Men's Curling Championships Curling in Saskatoon

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

1989 in Canadian curling 1989 in Saskatchewan March 1989 sports events in Canada