Cowtown moves into second

As the 48 curlers of the 2009 Tim Hortons Brier head on to the ice to start the action at the Pengrowth Saddledome on Saturday, Calgary will move into sole possession of second place on the list of all time Brier hosts.
As the host of the first 13 Briers (1927-1939) and number 15 (1941), Toronto has a firm grip on first place on the list of all-time Brier hosts with 14.
With the start of this year's event, Calgary's total rolls up (Timmy's anyone?) to six, well shy of Hogtown, even though the Ontario capital hasn't hosted a Brier in almost 70 years.
The Brier has previously called Calgary home in 1948, 1961, 1980, 1997 and 2002.
The Victoria Arena was the locale for the first Alberta Brier in 1948. The next two were held in the Stampede Corral (the first home of the Calgary Flames). The last two, like this year's, were held in the Saddledome.
If anybody's looking for any omens, in those five previous Cowtown Briers, Alberta won three of them (1961 — Edmonton's Hec Gervais, 1997 — Edmonton's Kevin Martin, and 2002 — Edmonton's Randy Ferbey).
The other two were also won by western rinks — B.C.'s Frenchy D'Amour in 1948 and Saskatchewan's Rick Folk in 1980, the first of the playoff years.
Ironically, in those years, Alberta was represented by Calgary rinks.
Scotty McLaws from the Calgary Glencoe finished tied for sixth with Nova Scotia in 1948. In his only Brier appearance, two-time world junior champ Paul Gowsell of the Calgary Winter Club finished third after losing the semifinal to Northern Ontario's Al Hackner.
While this may bode well for Martin seeing as though Edmonton rinks fare well in Calgary and his rink is based out of the Saville Centre, half of the team is from Calgary (John Morris and Ben Hebert). Who knows what that'll do to them?
As for Calgary's exclusive hold on second place, that will last all of a year as Halifax has been picked to host the 2010 Brier. That will be the sixth time for the Nova Scotia capital. The other cities that have hosted five times (Edmonton, Winnipeg and Saskatoon) will all likely get No. 6 before Calgary sees No. 7.