By Canadian Press

Play at Canadian men’s curling championship delayed for hour by power outage

Mar 11, 2017 | 10:45 AM

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Canada lead Ben Hebert set up a couple folding chairs and stretched out. Teammate Brent Laing bit into an apple and relaxed by the team bench.

The fans at the Tim Hortons Brier also took an extended delay to the Page playoff 3-4 game in stride Saturday afternoon as extreme winds whipped through the downtown core outside Mile One Centre.

A power outage briefly left the 6,000-seat arena in the dark before backup generators provided partial lighting. Full lighting was eventually restored and the game between defending champion Kevin Koe and Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs resumed after a 66-minute wait.

The lights went out just after the completion of the third end with Canada holding a 2-0 lead.

“It’s definitely unusual,” said Canada alternate Scott Pfeifer. “I guess you come out and approach it as a brand new seven-end game.”

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Canada won the game 6-2 to advance to the semifinal on Saturday night against Manitoba’s Mike McEwen.

A weather warning was issued for St. John’s earlier in the day. Gusts between 120 and 160 km/h were reported in the area.

Newfoundland Power reported multiple outages throughout the province and police issued a statement advising motorists to avoid “all non-emergency travel” until the blustery weather subsides.

“I was actually in the dressing room with no lights whatsoever,” Pfeifer said with a laugh. “So I had to feel my way out of there to get back for the fourth end.”

Irrepressible curling fans made the most of the unexpected twist, waving their lit up phones as if they were at a concert and singing along to Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.”

“This just shows the true resilience of all the curling fans here, turning what could be possibly a negative into a positive,” Pfeifer said. “It’s a shame the game is delayed but people are having fun.”

Sheila Dunne, who’s originally from Bonavista Bay, N.L., but now lives in Metcalfe, Ont., was in the crowd at the time. 

“It’s Mother Nature,” she said as she and friends waited out the delay by getting group photos taken.

Rodney Davis said the blackout will provide another memory to a long string of Brier adventures across the country. He took the delay in stride.

“We’ll just have another beer,” he said. 

Dunne added the province is known for its famous storms and gale-force winds.

“You try to explain to people what it’s like,” she said. “Well, here you go.”

The Northern Ontario players returned to the locker-room area for most of the delay. They later joined the Canada players for some practice shots to test out the ice, which had to be scraped and repebbled.

The delay forced organizers to push back the start of the semifinal by half an hour to 8:30 p.m. local time.

“We’ve had a few delays at Briers before,” said Pfeifer, who won the Brier four times in the early 2000’s on the famed Ferbey Four team. “Our first Brier in 2001, we had pigeons in the rafters that were disrupting insulation that was falling directly on our sheet.

“That’s one thing — always expect the unexpected I guess.”

The semifinal winner will play Newfoundland and Labrador’s Brad Gushue on Sunday night in the championship game. 

Jacobs will play the semifinal loser for the bronze earlier in the day.

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Follow @GregoryStrongCP and @suebailey on Twitter.

Gregory Strong and Sue Bailey, The Canadian Press