The 1979

Macdonald 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 ...

, Canada's national men's

curling 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 ...

championship was held from March 4 to March 10 at the

Ottawa Civic Centre TD Place Arena, originally the Ottawa Civic Centre, is an indoor arena located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, seating 9,500. With temporary seating and standing room it can hold 10,585. Opened in December 1967, it is used primarily for sports, inc ...

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

. Manitoba's

Barry Fry Barry Francis Fry (born 7 April 1945) is an English former football player and manager. A winger, Fry was an apprentice at Manchester United in his youth, and had brief spells with Bolton Wanderers, Luton Town and Leyton Orient, before he reti ...

won his only Brier title of his career. He clinched the Brier title following the Friday night (March 9) draw. The rink which also included Bill Carey, Gordon Sparkes and

Bryan Wood Bryan Wood (born 3 April 1954) is a former Australian rules football player who played in the Victorian Football League (VFL) between 1972 and 1982 for the Richmond Football Club and between 1983 and 1986 for the Essendon Football Club ...

would go on to represent Canada at the

1979 Air Canada Silver Broom The 1979 Air Canada Silver Broom, the men's world curling championship, was held from March 26–April 1 at the Allmend Eisstadion in Bern, Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and go ...

, the

World Curling Championships The World Curling Championships are the annual world championships for curling, organized by the World Curling Federation and contested by national championship teams. There are men's, women's and mixed doubles championships, as well as men's an ...

. It would be the last Brier under the sponsorship of

Macdonald Tobacco The Macdonald Tobacco Company (initially called McDonald Brothers and Co.), founded in 1858 by William Christopher Macdonald and his brother Augustine, converted tobacco leaf from southern U.S. suppliers to pipe and chewing tobacco in Montreal. A ...

. 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 David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...

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 also the last Brier without a playoff following the round robin. The final attendance of the event was 89,081 which was a Brier record at the time. 7000 people witnessed the final draw on March 10, despite the matches being meaningless to the outcome of the event. 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

Round robin standings

Round robin results

All draw times are listed in

Eastern 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, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small port ...

( UTC−05:00)

Draw 1

''Sunday, March 4 3:00 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''

References

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

{{Canadian Men's Curling Championships 1979 in Canadian curling

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 in Ottawa 1979 in Ontario