Curler's Corner: Long-time curling club manager made it to Briers twice

Two-time Brier competitor

Photo: Randy Nelson

Brian Eden throws a curling stone in the 1981 Brier.

Curler's Corner is a column written by the Kamloops Curling Club's Randy Nelson. Published each Monday morning for the next several weeks, this column will highlight moments of Tournament Capital curling history and noteworthy athletes from over the decades.

Brian Eden is the longest serving manager of the Kamloops Curling Club, with more than 34 years in the role. He also found time to curl, finding success with his wife Jane in mixed as well as representing B.C. at the Brier in 1981 and 1986.

Brian was born and raised near Summerland where his parents ran an orchard. Brian’s dad was also the ice maker at the three-sheet Summerland curling club in the downtown area, where the old folks home is today. His mother ran the concession. It was inevitable that Brian would take up curling, with it being part of his parent’s life every winter.

Brian was 12 years old when the introduction of sliding came to curling. Prior to that, curlers just squatted in the hack and threw without sliding. He remembers wanting to try sliding, but curling shoes with sliders weren’t available yet.

Most kids with a rural or farming background are used to being creative and making do with what they had. Brian pulled one of the metal score numbers off the scoreboard, stood on it with one foot and pushed out in the hack. He had just invented his own version of a slider!

Summerland High School didn’t have as many curlers as most schools. Brian played in high school and played third for his father on a men’s team. They achieved his dad’s dream of winning the Summerland spiel with his son before Brian went off to Calgary to take accounting.

His accounting career took him to Camrose and Edmonton with jobs working for Massey-Ferguson (farm equipment) and a finance company. Accounting can be considered boring for many. Brian’s skill of working with numbers landed him his number one partner for life. Jane also worked in the office. They would get married and have been together for 56 years and counting.

Brian and Jane moved to Kamloops in 1973. A couple of years later, the curling club was in need of a manager. Brian’s accounting background was handy for the business side of things, but he had to learn the rest of the job on the fly. Jane volunteered her time to help out.

The club was a booming business to operate, with 1,000 curlers, 64 teams of men’s curlers four nights a week, two full draws of business ladies, mixed on Saturday, a CN Rail league, a Woodward’s league, B.C. Teachers league, Nisei league and Commercial Traveller’s league.

The job included printing draws up for everyone on a Gestetner machine, a hand cranked device that would produce one copy each turn of the crank, hiring the ice making crew, building up the kitchen, order food and liquor for the bar, et cetera. The only free time to work on the ice was after 11 p.m., as curling occupied most of the day.

In 1981, Brian played second for skip Barry McPhee, third Rob Kuroyama and lead Grant Young. The Interior playdowns were in Prince Rupert and they won. They had to return to Prince Rupert a week later for the provincials and breezed through the event, earning their spot in the Brier in Halifax where they made it to the playoffs before losing out.

During the event, Brian made friends with a lobster supplier. Another club member worked for an airline and was able to provide free shipping for the lobster feast that Brian and Jane arranged once a year for upwards of 200 people at the curling club in Kamloops.

Brian has more than 20 zone plaques from his curling accomplishments. He’s won a plaque playing in all four positions. That’s a remarkable achievement given how busy the club was, how many teams there were and how little time he would have. Jane would run the office when Brian had to go to playdowns.

In 1984-85, Brian was curling with another great team, Tony Eberts, Glen Archer and Wade Carpenter. The playdowns were in North Kamloops.

Tony was skip, but was late for the first game so Brian started to skip. Tony showed up but let Brian finish skipping the game. Brian skipped the team all the way to the provincials that year. The moral of that story is a skip should never be late for a game.

Brian made it to provincials a couple of times as skip until 1986, when he played second for Barry McPhee along with Rob Kuroyama at third and Dave Schleppe at lead. They won the provincials, and made it to the semi-final at the Kitchener, Ont. Brier where they lost a heart breaker by one inch to future world champions Russ and Glen Howard of Ontario.

I asked Brian for a good story and he delivered.

It turns out an out-of-town curler at a bonspiel had acquired a serious case of alcohol flu. The guy ended up in the bathroom speaking on the great white phone. He flushed the toilet just as another stomach heave launched his false teeth down the hole. The next morning, Brian took the toilet off to find the teeth balancing on the toilet base. He was able to locate the hungover, toothless curler before he returned to the coast and gave him his teeth back.

Brian and Jane ran the club for more than 34 years before they retired in 2008. They saw some remarkable times at the club. They also saw some things that we can’t print.

Their dedication to the Kamloops Curling Club helped make it a resounding success over the years. Brian is truly one of Kamloops Curling Legends. Today, Brian and Jane run a small honey business and enjoy their grandkids and some of their curling successes. Thank you, Brian and Jane.

If you want to give curling a try sign up for a Burger and Beer night on Feb. 9th or Feb. 23rd by calling the Club at 250-372-5432. Visit the website and enter our 50-50 at kamloopscurlingclub.com.

Photo: Randy Nelson

Brian Eden (second from the left) with his team in the 1986 Brier.