Glenn Howard made his dream a reality this curling season.
He is looking to compete in the 16th Brier of his illustrious career, alongside a new teammate, his son Scott.
The Midland, Ont., native shared how special it has been to have this once in a lifetime opportunity.
“It’s a cliché, but it really is a dream come true for me,” Glenn said. “I’m at the twilight of my career, and the fact that I am going to be able to play with my son for the last two or three years of my career is just going to be a dream come true.”
This is the fourth year in a row that the younger Howard will be playing with a new team.
Scott has been making a respectable career for himself during that time, competing in two Briers and one world championship, where he won gold as the second for Team Epping in 2012.
Team Ontario with their pops. #greatmoment pic.twitter.com/9ag6xlY0LS
— Glenn Howard (@howardfour) March 1, 2015
“I knew as my career went on, and my son started to come up and into the ranks, I thought that it would be awesome to be able to play with him,” Glenn said. “All of a sudden this past year, he probably had the best year of his young career and then his team blew up and all went their own way.
“That’s when I realized that this is the time to jump ship, so to speak, with my team and form a new team with him on it.”
Last season, Glenn fielded a team consisting of Richard Hart, Jon Mead, and Craig Savill.
Howard has an almost brand new foursome this season, bringing back three-time world champion Wayne Middaugh out of retirement to play vice, moving Hart from vice to second, and replacing Savill with Scott on the front-end.
Even though this is their first season as a team, Glenn said Middaugh and Hart are definitely not strangers to his family.
“They’re virtually like second fathers to Scott,” he said. “They were around when he was born, they watched him grow up, Scott has been a fifth man for the team when Rich played, been a fifth man when Wayne played, right to the world championships, so they know him really well.”
Middaugh and Hart may be like father figures to Scott, but Glenn hasn’t found any difficulty in transitioning from dad to teammate.
“I just treat him like a teammate and I try not to do the fatherly thing, and he treats me like a teammate,” the four-time world champion said. “He’s my son still and I’m his dad, but on the same token we’re teammates and that’s how I want it to be.”
Team Howard has been clicking so far during the first two events of the young season.
The rink competed at the first Grand Slam of Curling event in Newfoundland, going 3-1 to qualify for the playoffs, only to be defeated by Team Gushue in the quarterfinals.
In the second event of the season in Cornwall, Ont., Team Howard went an impressive 7-0, but was once again defeated by Gushue in the finals.
Hanging with my kids Saturday night at The Cornwall CC. Doesn’t get any better than this. #livingthedream pic.twitter.com/4yNY7VwZbd — Glenn Howard (@howardfour) September 20, 2015
“We’re 10-3 going into the season already, and that’s without Wayne Middaugh,” Glenn said, a week before his next bonspiel in Toronto. “We picked up a spare named Adam Spencer, who we’ve known for years, and he just came into the mix, we threw him in at second … low-and-behold in the two bonspiels we went 10-3 and a quarterfinal and a final.”
Glenn will hopefully have Middaugh back for the team’s next event, the Stu Sells Toronto Tankard starting Oct. 9, where Team Howard will look to come back against Team Gushue.