February 13….Jean-Michel Ménard, the 2006 Tim Hortons Brier champion and 2006 world men’s runner-up, will return to the Canadian men’s curling championship in Winnipeg, March 8-16, after defeating Martin Ferland in the Quebec final Tuesday night.

Ménard took three in the fifth for a 5-2 lead at the break, then held off Ferland at the finish, needing to score a point in the 10th end with his last rock in making the final score, 7-5.

Ménard, representing both the Victoria and Etchemin Curling Clubs of Ste-Foy and St-Romuald, respectively, thus completed the provincial championship in Trois-Rivières with a perfect 11-0.

Twenty-teams, separated into two 10-team divisions, participated.   Ménard won Section B with a 9-0 mark, while Ferland, last year’s provincial champion while playing third for Pierre Charette, directed his Cap-de-la-Madeleine team to a similar 9-0 mark in Section A.

Ménard met Ferland in the cross-over A1 vs B1 Page playoff game and won 7-5 to advance to the final.  Ferland then had to beat another former provincial champion, François Roberge, which he did, 7-5 in the semi-final, to earn the rematch with Ménard.   But the result AND the score were the same.

Ménard is joined by Martin Crête at third, Éric Sylvain at second and Jean Gagnon at lead.  In 2006, Ménard upset Ontario’s Glenn Howard at the Tim Hortons Brier in Regina, 8-7, then went on to finish second to Scotland’s David Murdoch at the world men’s in Lowell, Massachusetts.

This will be the fifth Brier appearance for Ménard, the 2001 Canadian Mixed champion, who also played second for Guy Hemmings in 2003, was the alternate for Roberge in 2002, getting into one game, then skipped Quebec in 2005 and 2006.

It will also be the fifth Brier appearance for Sylvain, all at second, who previously played in 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2006.

For Crête, a five-time provincial junior champion, who holds the record for most wins (41) as a skip at the Canadian juniors, it will be his Brier debut.

For Gagnon, it will be his fourth appearance, after playing lead for Roberge in 2000 and 2002, then getting into one game as lead for Ménard in 2006.
 
Quebec has two Brier victories to its credit, by Jim Ursel in 1977 in Montreal and by Ménard in 2006 in Regina.

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