It was a storyline ripped right out of a Hollywood script.
Victoria Curling Club skip Jacques Gauthier, hospitalized Saturday and on IV drip, dragged himself out of the hospital bed Sunday in time to beat defending-champion Brent Pierce 8-5 to win the B.C. men’s curling championship final in Chillwack and advance to the Tim Hortons Brier in London, Ont., from March 3 to 12.
“We are still in disbelief. It was wild, to say the least. It was a crazy 24 hours,” said Gauthier.
“I couldn’t keep anything down. At first I thought it was food poisoning, but there was a lot of flu going around Chilliwack. But we got through it and I am so happy and proud to be representing the Victoria Curling Club in the Brier. It has not sunk in even yet. We are still on Cloud 9.”
Gauthier had to miss the 1-2 final Saturday with the Victoria rink down to three players with lead Alex Horvath skipping and third Sterling Middleton throwing shot rock. The other member of the Victoria rink, coached by Bryan Miki, is second Jason Ginter.
“It was a full team effort,” said Gauthier, who admitted he didn’t feel 100 per cent in the final.
“Maybe I should worry about job security,” he quipped.
Horvath said he hasn’t skipped a rink in seven years until the weekend. But everybody had to step up and do what they had to do.
“We got on a roll early in the week and were throwing well and feeling confident, and then got through the Saturday 1-2 game with Jacques in hospital on fluids and down to three players, and then closed it out Sunday with Jacques returning,” said Horvath.
“Even though I haven’t let the provincial trophy out of my sight since Sunday, it really hasn’t hit us, yet.”
Maybe it will Tuesday night when Horvath and Middleton bring the B.C. championship trophy to the Victoria Curling Club to display during their regular weekly club game.
Gauthier is from Winnipeg and Ginter was raised in Dawson City and now resides in Edmonton. The rink got together through old connections. Victorians Horvath and Middleton were on Tyler Tardi’s Langley rink that won the 2019 world junior championship after beating Gauthier in the Canadian championship game. Tardi and Gauthier are cousins and Gauthier’s maternal side of the family are the Tardis of B.C., with his grandparents living on the Island, so that led to the rink being formed this year at the Victoria Club.
“Curling is a small world and everybody knows everybody,” said Horvath.
Gauthier, a financial adviser, added: “We had a slow start to the season and it took us a while to figure out who we are.”
Just who they are, are B.C. champions.
The largely youthful rink — with Gauthier, Middleton and Horvath all 24 and Ginter 30 — played many of the big names on the major tours this season and will not be intimidated by any rink they’ll be facing in the Brier.
“We know what it takes to win games at that level,” said Horvath.
Gauthier becomes the first Victoria Curling Club rink to play in the Brier since Dean Joanisse was backed by Mike Wood, Dave Nantes and Chris Atchison in 2007 and the fourth from the venerable club on Quadra Street following also Tony Gutoski in 1958 and Tim Horrigan in 1980. Gauthier becomes the sixth rink from the Island to play in the Brier, including Glen Harper of Duncan in 1960 and 1963.
Joanisse played in the in 2001 Brier with an all-Island player Royal City rink that included Jay Tuson, Glen Jackson and Randy Tervo. Jim Armstrong from Esquimalt, 2010 Vancouver and 2014 Sochi Paralympics gold medallist, in his able-bodied career won provincials and played in the Brier in 1974 and 1992 skipping Mainland rinks.
The Gauthier rink will look to become the first from B.C. to win the Brier since Greg McAulay of Royal City in 2000 — Miki was the second on that rink and Pierce the third — and only the fifth Brier-winning rink from B.C. including Rick Folk’s of Kelowna in 1994, Lyall Dagg’s of Vancouver in 1964 and Frenchy D’Amour’s of Trail in 1948.
The dynastic Jim Cotter rink from the Okanagan, with 10 Brier appearances and a runner-up finish in the Olympic trials for Sochi 2014, placed third this year at provincials with two-time B.C. junior champion Corey Chester of Victoria playing third for the rink.
The Clancy Grandy rink from Vancouver edged the Corryn Brown rink from Kamloops and Penticton 10-9 in extra ends in the B.C. women’s final, also played Sunday in Chilliwack, to advance to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts national championship Feb. 17-26 in Kamloops. The Taylor Reese-Hansen rink from Victoria and Kamloops was the third-place B.C. women’s finisher.
cdheensaw@timescolonist.com
