At one time Gloria and I were real fanatics and I suppose we still are in a lot of ways. We started going to the Brier at Sault Ste. Marie in 1990 and did 10 in a row, ending our run in Edmonton in 1999 and boy do we miss it. The Brier is the most fantastic 10 days of curling, camaraderie, excitement and partying that you could possibly imagine. Those of you who know me would say party? What? This guy at a party? NO WAY! Believe me, the Brier is different...
The fans at this event are a special breed and if you’re lucky you are accepted as one of the group and if you’re very lucky you become someone who is expected to be there and missed if you are not. We were in the very lucky category for many years and as part of the “James Bay Gang” we gained certain notoriety among the group.
Highlights?
Our two personal pins that are now collectors items, making the newspapers just about every year, being interviewed for the Brier Tankard, attending Morning Classes, becoming one of the better known pin traders in the country, the “James Bay Gang” banner across the high and low reaches of the arenas, the many shuttle bus rides, trying to get a sign onto the bus in Ottawa that was way too big for the bus, running decoy and making the local Police watch me by standing in the middle of the street while another member of “the gang” appropriated a HUGE Brier sign off the side of a hotel, running “Sebastian” through the elevator system of a hotel (you had to be there), having a full case of 24 (open) Labatt product dropped on your table 15 minutes before Brier Patch closing (how do we smuggle these out of here?), knowing the secret telephone number that would get a VIP shuttle at your door to take you wherever you wanted to go, leading the singing of Barretts Privateers in the bus on the way back from a team hosting, the team hosting themselves, meeting Prairie Oyster, meeting the Good Brothers, partying with Brier Bear, helping Glen Howard spill his beer, watching people jump a polar 
bear, the power going off in the middle of the game in Winnipeg, meeting the Wrench and the Iceman, having a very friendly shouting match in a restaurant in Halifax (Northern Ontario! Nova Scotia!), galloping the length of the Brier Patch in Kamloops to claim a prize from Dan Gallagher, riding in Eric Clapton's limo from Kamloops to Vancouver, asking people on Tuesday "So when does the curling start?", being asked (almost seriously) to play a couple shots as lead for the “Maxie” team, shouting POLAR POWER during the games, borrowing (stealing) a bed out of a hotel hallway for a friend, being on the Jumbotron too many times to count, fitting 15 people into a mini-van for the ride back to the hotel in Red Deer, closing off the televised tie-breaker game in my "Curl Naked" t-shirt one night, an entire bus load of us piling off and raiding the liquor store in Airdrie while Russ and the boys go for subs across the road, meeting A LOT of really great people and so on and so on… I REALLY REALLY REALLY MISS THOSE DAYS!
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