Kevin Smale, one of the best curlers Prince George has ever produced, died Saturday at the age of 72.
A B.C. champion at the high school, men's and senior levels as well as a member of the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame, Kevin was at his peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s when he skipped two local rinks to the Brier and came within a win of securing a national title.
"His curling coach watched him play hockey one time and said, 'you're never going to be a Jean Beliveau, but if you stick with that curling I think you're going to go to the Brier one day,' " Kevin's son Darren recalled. "So he quit hockey, focussed on curling and lo and behold they went to the Brier."
Kevin made his first appearance on the national stage at the Canadian high school championships in 1958 and just over a decade later he qualified for the Brier. His rink, which included Pete Sherba, Pat Carr and Bob MacDonald finished the 1969 men's national curling championship in second place with a 9-1 record.
"When they came home there was a parade in the city in convertibles and they got watches from the city," Darren said. "It was a huge, huge event at the time."
Kevin's second trip to the Brier two years later went through Prince George. In those days the B.C. championship featured the interior champions squaring off against the coastal champion in a best-of-three series. The 1971 title was decided in an extra end in the third game at Kevin's home club.
"My dad made an incredible cross-house double for the win," Darren said. "It was quite something, I guess. He blew the roof off the joint."
The Smale rink reached the provincial final four times in five years between 1968 and 1972, but that was just one chapter in what was a decades long career in the sport. In the 1990s Darren, then in his 20s, teamed up with his dad to make three more runs at a trip to the Brier. They played in the provincial bonspiel three times together, in 1992, '94 and in Prince George in '99, but were never able to break through.
Darren said qualifying for that last provincials was special because they beat a rink skipped by former Canadian champion Pat Ryan to qualify. He said it wasn't until years later that he appreciated the significance of playing at the provincials with his dad.
"My dad, he could read the ice so well, I threw last rock but I didn't have to think of anything else because he always put the broom in the right spot," Darren said.
Arthritis slowed Kevin over the years, although he continued to curl at a high level for as long as he could. His death on Saturday ended a long battle with cancer.
Kevin was nearly a lifelong resident of Prince George. He moved to the city when he was just a one-year-old with his family from Wedena, Sask., and stayed the rest of his life. He was a fixture at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club, winning three Kelly Cups and loved the camaraderie of the curling community.
"His curling stories will be missed at the rink," Darren said. "Just games and situations, stuff that happened on and off the ice. He had some really well known curling stories."
Off the ice, Kevin spent most of his career in car sales working at local Chrysler dealerships, but also spent time in sales in menswear, shoes and bookkeeping.
Kevin's curling legacy will live on this spring in Kamloops at the Brier. His eight-year-old granddaughter Annika will wear his two purple hearts when she sings the national anthem at one of the draws.
There will be a celebration of Kevin's life on Friday at 2 p.m. at the Kinsmen Community Complex.
