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Glenn Howard and his team from the Coldwater and District Curling Club posted a 5-3 win over Ottawa’s Bryan Cochrane on Sunday in Napanee to claim a fifth consecutive Ontario men’s curling championship.

Howard rink stamps ticket for Brier

BY Mike Dodd February 08, 2010 17:02

NAPANEE – The Ontario Curling Association may want to rename its fabled trophy the Glenn Howard Cup.
Howard, the 47-year-old Midland native, capped a perfect week Sunday in Napanee, skipping his Coldwater and District Curling Club rink to a 5-3 win over Ottawa’s Bryan Cochrane to capture the 2010 Ontario men’s curling championship.
“It feels pretty fantastic to win again,” Howard said during a phone conversation with The Mirror from Napanee on Sunday evening. “The guys just played great behind me all week.”
The victory marked Howard’s fifth straight Ontario title. He now advances to the 2010 Brier, to be held March 6-14 in Halifax.
“We’re right where we want to be,” said Howard, a three-time world champion.
The win over Cochrane ended a week that saw Howard and his team of Richard Hart, Brent Laing and Craig Savill compile a perfect 10-0 record in round-robin play, and then score back-to-back wins over Cochrane in playoff action to claim the title.
“It’s kind of a surreal feeling in that we’ve now won provincial titles in five of the six years we’ve been together as a team, and now have won five in a row. It just speaks to how great a team I have and how we manage to play well enough to win in each game,” said Howard.
After 10 straight wins in the round-robin, Howard said, he wondered how long the magic would last.
“It felt great to play so well all week, but you know the odds are you can’t keep playing like that all the time,” he said. “You wonder when the curling gods are going to catch up with you.”
On Saturday, Howard scored a 6-4 win over Cochrane in the Page 1-2 playoff game. That forced Cochrane into a sudden-death game against Brampton’s Peter Corner. Cochrane won 12-5 to earn a second shot at Howard in the final.
In Sunday’s final, Howard built a 2-0 lead after three ends, and then added single points in the fifth and seventh ends to move in front 4-1. Cochrane made things interesting with single points in the eighth and ninth ends to narrow the gap to 4-3.
But holding last-rock advantage in the 10th and final end, Howard only needed to throw draw weight to the house for the championship.

mdodd@simcoe.com

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