The loss of a father-and-son duo hangs over a small curling club on Brier’s championship weekend

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Curlers carrying brooms scurry about inside the Capital Winter Club. Framed banners from national and world championships line the walls. Display cases are filled with silver plates, trophies and patches from bonspiels long past. Curling stones are employed as door stoppers and as centrepieces on tables in the lounge. Drink forms wait to be filled out, postgame libation celebrations being as old as curling itself.

The club was built in 1961 and has taken the place of the old Fredericton Curling Club, which opened in 1854. In 2021, it was the site of a 120-hour curling game, one of the world’s longest.

At the height of the pandemic, the club was one of the few venues in Fredericton where people could gather. Before they were admitted, members had to pass health screening tests. They wore masks while they curled and competed in bubbles against the same opponents over and over again.

“For me, the club has evolved since COVID,” says Jeff Palk, an optometrist. “Before it, people came here to curl. When COVID hit, everybody came because it was the one place we could go.

“It became everyone’s second home. We became like a family.”

Pebblers Pub, which is on the second floor and overlooks the sheets of ice, is routinely jammed after each session of games. It is a hub where curlers raise a glass and exchange stories and good-natured barbs.

“It’s like Cheers,” says Jaime Watson, its manager for four-plus years. “Everyone knows everyone’s name.”

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And so this close-knit community was profoundly shaken when two of its most prominent members, the father-and-son duo of Bob and Jamie Brannen, each a national-level curler in his own right, died on the same day last fall.

In less than 24 hours, the Brannen family was left to mourn two patriarchs, and the local and national curling community lost two great men who people close to the game saw as ambassadors. In six of the previous seven years, Jamie had been on teams that won provincial championships and represented New Brunswick at the Brier, Canada’s national men’s championship.

“There is never a shift that goes by where somebody doesn’t mention them,” says Bessie McGinn, a 21-year-old server at Pebbles. Her grandfather and father are among the club’s 560 members.

Condolences from the game’s best have poured in since the fall, including from Curling Canada, TSN, world and Olympic champion Jennifer Jones, former teammate and provincial champion James Grattan and former world champion Reid Carruthers.

So when the Brier is awarded this weekend in London, Ont., it is fair to say Jamie and Bob will be in the thoughts of curlers and fans nationwide.

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Jamie Brannen was born in Windsor, N.S., and grew up in Chipman, N.B., a village about 75 kilometres northeast of Fredericton that sits at the head of Grand Lake, the largest in the Maritimes. He moved to Fredericton to attend the University of New Brunswick and through the years eventually became known to many as the face of the Capital Winter Club.

To his family, he was a loving husband and a devoted dad, an engaging storyteller, a jokester and a barbecue king who insisted on holding family get-togethers. He loved banana bread, Crown Royal and the Montreal Canadiens.

Although he was an elite curler, Jamie also enjoyed competing for fun.

“Jamie just loved the sport,” says his wife, Lesley Hicks Brannen. “I watched him grow from someone who was so competitive and determined to somebody who wanted to support everybody else.

“He wanted to share the game. He learned how to laugh and enjoy himself. I never saw him lose his cool and he never missed a drink after the game. To him, it was part of the game.”

Jamie once won the club’s 50/50 raffle. When he collected the pot, instead of pocketing the winnings, he used the proceeds to buy everyone at the rink a round of drinks.

“He lived well and unapologetically,” Hicks Brannen says. “He was so full of life.”

Unsurprisingly, the two met through curling. They were partners on a mixed team and eventually went to a national championship. He pressed her for a relationship, but she wasn’t ready at first.

Eventually his persistence was rewarded, and they were married on Sept. 5, 1998, at the Kings Landing historical settlement near Fredericton. Bob served as Jamie’s best man.

The newlyweds searched for a place to settle down and took a walk in Upper Kingsclear, a hamlet carved out of the forest just beyond Fredericton, to look at vacant lots. Afterward they had milkshakes and bought a scratch-off ticket. They won $5,000 and used it as a down payment toward a new home. For more than two decades, the family has lived in that same house.

The couple raised two children: Alex, who is 17 and in 12th grade, and Julie, who is 21 and a fourth-year student at the University of New Brunswick.

On the morning of Sept. 23, 2022, Lesley Hicks Brannen lay in bed beside her husband. She did not know he had died in his sleep from a heart attack until he failed to wake up to an alarm set for 7 a.m. He was 47.

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Bob Brannen curled on Mondays in a league with three nonagenarians. Their team rarely lost.

“He could have curled with many people but he was kind to us because of our age,” says Henry Gilbert, 95. The other members were Doug Mockler and Jim Nicholson, both 92. “Some guys we played may have been a little humiliated but took it as good sports.”

Like many others here, Gilbert says the club feels empty without Bob, who was never shy to coach or tell his teammates the type of shot to play.

“As long as he was part of this rink he was going to take care of us. He was the baby of our group. We certainly miss him.”

Bob, a lifelong volunteer, teacher and coach for 30 years, was born in Fredericton and played basketball at the city’s St. Thomas University. He was known for his kindness and generosity, according to those who knew him best. After every curling match he handed out dark chocolates to his teammates – and the opponents they usually conquered.

A national-level and masters curler in his own right, he was his son’s No. 1 fan, says Steve Christie, who met Jamie in 2004 and curled with him in a recreational league for five years.

Hours after Jamie passed away, Bob was out walking his beloved Boston terrier, Samson, when he had a heart attack and collapsed. He died later that day at 73.

“You hear the term dying of a broken heart,” Christie says. “This was the boy he was living for.”

“He talked about his son like the sun and moon set on him,” says Ron Harding, who curled with Bob for eight years. “He died when Jamie died.”

At the hospital that night, Bob’s wife, Nancy, waited in a quiet room. A doctor came to speak to her.

“I’ve never experienced this,” he said. “Two family members in the same day.”

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It is the middle of February and Julie Brannen is back at the Capital Winter Club for the first time since the day of her father and grandfather’s funerals.

Sitting at a table near the back of Pebblers Pub, she has come to hear stories about Bob and Jamie from club members. For moral support, she is accompanied by her boyfriend, Isaac Scott, and her best friend, Hannah Lazaris-Decken.

One after another, people line up to reminisce about the Brannen boys. Some wear Brannen patches on their shirts.

“I don’t know where to start,” Jaclyn Crandall, an elementary school teacher, says of Jamie. “He was truly one of a kind.”

She had curled with him every week since the fall of 2020. In 2021, their team won the provincial mixed four championship and went on to the nationals in Alberta, where they finished fourth.

Crandall spoke to him the day before he died. They were getting ready for another mixed doubles season.

“We had a brief chat,” she says. “Everything seemed good. At school in Friday I was in shock.”

The next morning, she found out about Bob.

“It is a terrible tragedy,” she says. “They touched everyone here. It will never be the same.”

Julie says her father would text opponents the day before they curled at the club. “He wanted to get under their skin and get them aggravated. He’d be excited to get there and see how riled up they were.”

She reminisces with Lazaris-Decken about their childhood, and how they met at the old Fredericton City Curling Rink during a kids lesson, where Jamie volunteered.

In ninth grade they formed their own team, and Jamie stepped in to coach them. They practised twice weekly and competed once.

After she heard Bob had also died, “I laid in bed and cried for two hours,” says Lazaris-Decken, 21. She and Julie helped put together photos for the visitation.

Scott only knew Jamie and Bob for a brief time, but he says they both left a big impression on him. “I remember the day we found out Jamie had passed as the most disorienting day of my entire life. Before we could even find any sense of reality to hold onto, we found out that Bob had also passed away. I think I had hugged Bob for the first and last time that day.”

The week that Bob and Jamie died, many of the country’s top curlers were in Fredericton to participate in a bonspiel, the PointsBet Invitational.

Scott Jones, who had curled with Jamie for six years, including at the Brier, received a phone call during a pregame practice.

“I can’t describe to you what overtook everybody that entire weekend,” says Jones, who wore a Brannen patch at this year’s Brier as New Brunswick’s champion. “There is not a day that goes by where a memory of him doesn’t pop in.”

On the morning of Sept. 23, rumours began to circulate that something had happened to Jamie Brannen.

Jaime Watson tried to call Jamie but got no answer. Then she called Alex Robichaud, who was waiting to curl with him at the Capital Winter Club. Robichaud told her Jamie hadn’t arrived.

“I hung up and started to cry,” Watson says. “At that moment I knew. Jamie was never late.”

Soon after, Bob called and confirmed his son’s death.

Later, he contacted her again. So many people were inquiring about what happened that he asked her to put together something that could be posted on the club’s Facebook page. She agreed and when she was done sent it to Bob for his approval.

For hours, she checked her e-mail but never received a response. At 11:30 p.m., Chris Billings, Bob’s nephew, called and told her he had died.

She was confused at first.

“No, you mean Jamie,” she said.

On Sept. 2, Jamie celebrated his 47th birthday by playing nine holes of golf with his dad. As was their custom, that week he and Hicks Brannen celebrated 24 years together by attending the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival.

The morning Jamie died, Bob rushed to the house.

“He was a wonderful grandfather,” Hicks Brannen says. “He called me every week. ‘What can I do? How can I be involved with the kids?’ He was here for every birthday and every Christmas and every family get-together.”

Nancy and Bob had been married 17 years. On Sept. 23, she knew he was struggling with grief.

“He was having a difficult time but it was his mission to help us all,” she says.

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This year’s Brier has more meaning than others for some participants.

Darren Moulding of Alberta is still mourning.

He has competed in four Briers, but was cut from a team near the end of 2021. Jamie, who had competed for Team James Grattan at the past two Briers, reached out to him.

Moulding ended up taking Jamie’s spot on the team in all but a few games at the 2022 Brier in Lethbridge, his hometown.

“I asked him why he did it, and he said, ‘Because we are teammates and I wanted to make the team better.’ There was not an unselfish bone in his body.”

Moulding sobs as he talks about Jamie.

“When he died, it was incredibly hard. I didn’t even know him and he performed this huge act of kindness for me. It turned out to be his last Brier and I carry a little guilt about it.”

Moulding is competing for Northern Ontario at this year’s Brier in London; he won four of the first five games.

“It feels like he should be here,” Moulding says. “I felt it was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.”

Two metres of snow line the driveway of Hicks Brannen’s house in Upper Kingsclear. Icicles hang from the eves.

Curling jackets hang in a closet. A jigsaw puzzle sits atop a coffee table in the living room, pieces scattered. It was a family tradition to buy one each December and have everyone pitch in until it was done.

But that was then.

So much changed on that morning in September.

“It was the worst day of our lives,” Hicks Brannen says. “When you look back at it, you wonder how you got through it.”

The Brannens’ viewings were held in the same room at a funeral home and their caskets rested together at the front of a church during a memorial service. Five days after they died, they were buried side by side.

The curling community rallied around the family. Somebody donated a box of meat. Others volunteered to help with accounting and grief counselling. A neighbour put on Hicks Brannen’s snow tires.

In June, she had quit her job as a long-time counsellor to sexual-assault victims.

“I left work to start a new chapter. It is not the chapter I imagined.”

Pictures of birds that she took are displayed around the house. On her Facebook page are many more: chickadees and creepers, goldfinches, grackles and grosbeaks, sapsuckers and sparrows.

She looks out her front window and sees a blue jay perched on a railing. Usually, they come and go.

Then quietly, she says that she used to call Jamie, “Jay.”

Over the past few months, one blue jay has returned again and again. It follows her in lockstep around the yard.