HALIFAX, N.S. - Canadian curling's most famous kid brother had a free night on the town. Glenn Howard did not have to be anywhere on Saturday morning, following his playoff win at the Tim Hortons Brier on Friday night, but he opted against visiting the famed Brier Patch out of fear it would be "a gong show."
He went for dinner instead, lingering over a couple of drinks with friends before retiring to his hotel room to rest up for another national championship game. Howard said it had been a long week, that he felt tired, and that the skips remaining in contention had been making him feel his age.
"I definitely feel old," he said, smiling. "These guys are young enough to be my kids."
At 47, the Ontario skip was already an elder statesman, boasting more appearances (12) at the Canadian men's curling championship than anyone else in Halifax this week. And that difference will be highlighted again in Sunday's final, when he faces Alberta's Kevin Koe, who is making his Brier debut.
Howard's early appearances were made as part of a team led by his older brother, Russ, from whose enormous shadow he has always struggled to escape. The kid brother finally won a Brier of his own three years ago, and rolled through the round robin portion of the event without a loss this year.
"It is such a fine line between the top two or three teams and the rest of the pack," Howard said. "Really, it's only a shot here and a shot there. These teams are really close, and they're proving it all the time, day-in and day-out."
The competition has struggled to close the gap in Ontario, though, where Howard won his fifth consecutive provincial title Feb. 7. His rink, which includes third Richard Hart, second Brent Laing and lead Craig Savill, has been together for six years.
There has been plenty of heartbreak between the triumphs. Howard's rink has twice been a runner-up at the Brier (in 2006 and 2008) and, most painfully, it lost to Kevin Martin's Alberta rink in the final game of the Canadian Olympic curling trials last December.
Put together, the wins and losses add up to the kind of experience Koe cannot reasonably expect to match. The 35-year-old has been living under a shadow of his own, cast by Alberta's two giant rinks for years, struggling to get noticed behind Martin and Randy Ferbey.
Koe finished third in the round robin standings after a 7-6 loss to Ontario in the final draw. He had to take the long road to the final, beating Newfoundland and Labrador in the 3 versus 4 Page playoff game Saturday, followed by a rout of Northern Ontario later in the day.
"You know how much you don't want to lose," Hart had said before the evening game. "And I'm not saying it's going to happen, but there's always the possibility that the other team may be kind of happy to be there. We're going to hope that's the case."
Howard has been in the Brier final eight times, winning three.
"My winning percentage is not the best, and that's upsetting," Howard said. "I don't care what it's in - whether it be the trials or the Brier or whatever - second is not fun. If we happen to lose (Sunday) night, I won't be very happy. But our plan is to obviously go and win this thing and get that percentage a little closer to 50."