Did Robert "Evel" Knievel ever throw a curling stone?
Not as far as his great-great nephew James Knievel can tell, but you never know.
Long before he became a famous daredevil on his motorcycle, Evel was good enough to play semipro hockey in his native Montana for the Butte Bombers, so it wouldn't be much of stretch to think Evel made his way to the local curling rink once or twice to discover ice wasn't just for sliding pucks around.
James, a 49-year-old farmer from Manning, Alta., and one of 41 skips in the hunt this weekend for the 90th Canuck Mechanical Kelly Cup curling championship at Prince George Golf and Curling Club, remembers meeting the man in 1992 when Evel was in Fairview, Alta., as the special guest at a 24-hour motorcycle race.
"We sat with him for two evenings, the whole family, because they didn't have anything for him to do," said James. "He said he was always in trouble with the IRS because he didn't pay his taxes, and he said, in his lifetime, he made $62 million but the unfortunate thing was he spent $68 million.
"You'd see him sitting in a lounge chair and he'd be siting for 90 minutes and he would take four or five times longer to get out of that chair than the average person."
Evel died in 2007 at age 69 of complications related to diabetes. But it was only good fortune he didn't pack it in a lot earlier, jumping obstacles like the fountain at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas or the Snake River Canyon.
The Knievel Kelly Cup team includes James's 17-year-old son Lane at third, Cory Eberle of Prince George at second and lead Brett Knievel (James' first cousin) of Calgary. The family tie is that Brett and James's great-great grandfather was Evel's great grandfather.
"All the Knievels in North America come from one source," said James.
Originally from a German-speaking part of Russia, the Knievel clan first came to Nebraska, one one the descendants, Otto Knievel, settled in 1917 in Trochu, Alta., 140 kilometres northeast of Calgary, where all of the Canadian Knievels have roots.
Fred Hofferd has been trying to convince the Knievel crew to make the 650-kilometre trip west to Prince George to enter the Kelly Cup for 22 years. James's wife JoAnn is Hofferd's niece and they are regular visitors to the city in the summer, where they spend time at Hofferd's cabin at Summit Lake. But this is Knievel's first crack at the Kelly Cup and so far so good.
"I kick myself I didn't come 21 years ago," said James. "We've already said we'll be back here for the 100th Kelly Cup."
They lost their first game in the A pool on Thursday to Blair Hedden of Quesnel, then put together back-to-back wins over local rinks skipped by Kasper Walraven and Bill Fisher. The game against Fisher, a former Kelly Cup champion, lasted just five ends Friday before they shook hands, leading 8-1. But not before Fisher made the shot of the day - a double angle-raise to the button for one in the third end.
"He made a great shot," said James. "But we were on our game."
Hofferd, who skips a team with Murray Kutyn, Gary Russell and Don McDermid, lost his first two games and is out of the running for the Kelly Cup title.
James has been to six Alberta men's championships. The past two years he's been part of the front end of Peace Country-champion rink skipped by Greg Pasichnuk. They went 0-3 in the 12-team Alberta finals this year.
"James needs to work on his in-turn," joked his cousin Brett.
Lane is James's youngest son and has qualified for the Alberta junior championships in each of the last two years and this year won bronze at the high school provincials. Lane says he's never followed the Knievel tradition of dangling your future on a dirt bike - for good reason.
"My mom would never let me to ride a motorcycle," he said. Quads yes. Bikes no.
Smart woman. Evel was known to have broken just about every bone in his body at least once, and with 11,500 acres of farmland to work on the family spread, she much preferred her boys remaining in one piece, sticking close to home at the curling rink.
Four rinks - Blake King, Scott Horvath, Greg Morgan and Bill Lim - made it through the A pool as Kelly Cup round qualifiers. The other four rinks that will be in the running for the big trophy will be determined today.
The Kelly Cup and ladies tournament finals start Sunday at 2:45 p.m.
