That job being, of course, one of the commentators for TSN during the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, where he joined Vic Rauter and Cheryl Bernard providing the expert analysis only a two-time Brier and World champion can bring.
This past weekend, Howard was back at Mosaic Place. More specifically, the Moose Jaw Ford Curling Centre. And this time, he was on the ice.
Howard stepped out from behind the glass as coach of son Steven’s Regina Highland foursome of third Daniel Selke, second Mat Ring and lead Scott Deck to serve as a fill-in skip for the young squad. And if you’re wondering how that came about, well, it’s all rather simple.
Howard moved to Regina last year with wife Wendy to be closer to their children -- Steven lives in the Queen City when he isn’t working in Fort McMurray, with those commitments leaving the younger Howard unavailable this weekend. Daughter Ashley Howard is the executive director of CurlSask and also lives in Regina. She was in town on the weekend helping run the 12-team event as well as keeping stats for Team Howard.
So, when it came time to take the ice on Friday for the first draw, Russ slipped on the slider, grabbed the broom and headed back into his old office.
“I took 10 years off from competitive curling, so I play like 10 games a year or five games a year, depending what year it is, so I’m just a club curler now,” Howard said shortly after falling to Rylan Kleiter in the championship final. “But if I get a chance to play the top teams let me at it, I still have that fire… But I have a bad knee and they use me sparingly. It’s okay when I’m playing Tuesday nights, but when you string together six or seven games it’s tough. But this weekend it was like riding a bike.”
Howard put together a 5-2 record with his crew over the weekend, and would have liked to have seen a better performance in the final, but when you’re 64 years old and dealing with a wonky lower limb, things can get a bit tough.
“The (Saskatchewan Roughriders) doctor is going to have a look and see if it’s salvageable,” Howard said with a rueful tone. “This week, I couldn’t hold myself up, I was making shots but it was hard to be precise and I fired it out there and got lucky. But if my knee was decent, I’d love to play, I miss it a lot. At least this weekend I didn’t hurt the team, but now I probably have to take two weeks off.”
It wouldn't be a curling tournament if Russ Howard didn't put his familiar voice to work at some point....There’s a good reason Howard still has that desire to compete -- when you’ve done as much as he has in the sport, it’s hard to lose the will to win. Howard won the Brier and world titles in both 1987 and 1993 to go along with eight Ontario championships, including four straight from 1991 through 1994 with Glenn Howard, Wayne Middaugh and Pete Corner.
Then there are his simple contributions to the game: Russ and brother Glenn created the ‘Moncton Rule’ that evolved into the current free-guard zone that is now universally used in the sport.
That’s why stepping into the coaching ranks was a natural fit for Howard, especially when his kids started following in their dad’s footsteps. And being able to take the ice in competitive situations most certainly helps.
“That’s why I play Tuesday nights,” Howard said. “I teach a lot of clinics and I find I’m better on the ice teaching. It’s so hypothetical when the game is over, it’s like ‘why didn’t you play that’ and ‘well, we would have done this’ and ‘you might not have made that’. Where on the ice it’s the real deal, you have to coach them how to miss, how to throw the perfect weight and the guys are getting better all the time.
“We played in this spiel last year and won four and lost the fifth. Then this one we won five and lost this one, so it’s pretty good. They’re brushing better, their judgement is better, playing the angles So much is teachable.”
Actually playing the game at a high level this weekend helps that much more, but comes with a caveat: you’re coaching and teaching, but wanting those wins at the same time.
“That’s the double-whammy,” Howard said. “I get to play, I have the competitive edge. This game we had a bunch of bad rocks, it was just horrible out there. But that (semifinal 6-3 win) against Sam Wills was great, and even back in the day if I’d lost to same in a game like that, I’d still be happy. Where this last game it just wasn’t very good.”
That all leads to the giant elephant in the room.
The SCT Moose Jaw spiel was played under heavy COVID-19 restrictions that included limited places curlers could stand on the ice, single sweepers and no skip sweeping. That’s on top of a raft of off-ice restrictions that saw the curlers leave the building as soon as possible after their draws, as well as limited numbers of fans throughout the weekend.
Howard didn’t mince words with the effect it’s having on the game and how difficult the whole situation has been for the sport.
“It’s horrible,” he said. “I know CurlSask is doing everything they can possibly do, but it’s up to the health region, we have to trust them.
“Can you imagine being Kerri Einarson? She wins the Canadian championship, puts the maple leaf on her back, goes home and the season is over. Or (Brad) Gushue again, his third chance, and all our top teams trying to gear up for the Olympic trials… I can’t imagine this when I played. I was a golf pro and when the season ended, I was curling. Now you can’t curl sometimes and that’s really tough for the top athletes in the sport.”
The good thing? As long as the knee holds out and there are games he can get into, Howard will do as much as he can to help Steven land the points he needs to qualify for the SaskTel Tankard.
“If I can play and I’m needed, it’s ‘put me in coach’,” he said with a laugh. “We got 10 of a maximum 12 points this weekend, and this might have been a good stepping stone to get them into provincials. I’ll coach them there. Unless there’s an injury. Then out I come. I’ll just have to go find some cartilage at Walmart or something.”
