Everyone knows how difficult it is to predict sports. But curling is probably one of the toughest to predict.
The 12-team tournament is just over a week long, only the top four teams make the playoffs, and there’s so much hollering and rock-throwing you can hardly think.
So rather than spending hours analyzing the competition and carefully considering the pros and cons of each team—then still being off the mark with predictions—I figured the best way to predict the 2016 Tim Hortons Brier would be with no research at all. That way the predictions are as unpredictable as the game itself.
For now, I’ll only predict the result of the round robin, since after watching a week of curling—and with the field being whittled down from twelve teams to four—I’ll have a legitimate shot of predicting at least one playoff game once next weekend arrives.
So rather than boring you with more redundant information, here’s the first-ever (annual?) unpredictable Brier predictions.
First: Team Canada. Last time I checked, countries are more significant than provinces and territories, so Canada wins by default.
Second: Team Northern Ontario. Brad Jacobs and his team of professional bodyguards will take a break from leg day to muscle their way through the competition. You heard it here first.
Third: Team Ontario. If memory serves correct, skip Glenn Howard has won a lot of games. And he will probably continue to win more at this Brier. I’d research and make sure my memory serves correct, but the first rule of this story is no research.
Fourth: Team Manitoba. It seems every year the same provinces consistently finish in top four every year, so it makes it difficult to root against the Manitobans.
Fifth: Team P.E.I. This is the difficult part—predicting the teams that won’t make the page playoffs. P.E.I. finishes fifth simply because, when I told my curling-crazed cousin I was covering the Brier this year, she asked for Team P.E.I.’s autographs and informed me, “like, they are actually cute.” As we all know, cuteness can get you very far in life, but not far enough to make the page playoffs and win your province’s first-ever Brier title.
Sixth: Team Quebec. Gatineau’s Jean-Michel Ménard will have the crowd rooting for him throughout the week, but it won’t be enough to get into the playoffs. Sorry, they can’t all be funny.
Seventh: Team British Columbia. Seven is supposedly a lucky number, but not this week. Team British Columbia will lose seven games, all by a score of 7-5. After the tournament, B.C. will hold a players-only meeting for several hours, and still not decide what their new lucky number will be.
Eighth: Team Alberta. As I start to narrow down the teams, it becomes more difficult to predict, since the competition is usually fairly close. Alberta places eighth simply because I don’t want to be accused of predicting the teams based on alphabetical order, therefore logic dictates that Alberta must finish in the middle of the pack to distract the skeptics.
Ninth: Team Newfoundland and Labrador. Back in October 2015, Newfoundland and Labrador skip Brad Gushue took a spill and hammered (curling puns, bonus points) his noggin on the ice. He took a trip to the hospital to get some stitches then raced back to the arena and finished the game (fine, I admit—I did some research. It’s not easy to make a dozen curling jokes you know). Sounds to me that his services would be more useful as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs than a curling team.
Tenth: Team New Brunswick. I don’t know anything about this team, and I don’t intend on pretending I know anything about this team. So I’ll slot the team in tenth because that kind of seems reasonable.
Eleventh: Team Saskatchewan. The team will start the tournament well, however opponents will soon distract them by constantly asking how to spell “Saskatchewan.” The Saskatchewans (Saskatchewanians, Saskatchewanites?) will be so frustrated with the errors, they’ll miss their most important shots and lose a record nine games by one point. I think it’s a record—no research!
Twelfth: Team Northwest Territories. Winning the Pre-Qualifying Tournament will unfortunately be the highlight of Team Northwest Territories’ week. It’ll be a tough week in the win column for them, but at least they can say they were there.
While these unpredictable predictions are likely unlikely to occur, if I happen to be right about any of them, I won’t be letting anyone forget about it anytime soon.
Lastly, if any Brier teams out there are actually reading these predictions and are unhappy with them, I’d be happy to discuss it after we’ve taken a selfie and exchanged autographs.
