1980 Moncton Air Canada Silver Broom — Part 2

With the 2009 Ford World Men’s Curling Championship underway in
Moncton, New Brunswick, Curling into the Past will focus on the last men’s world championship in Moncton, the 1980 Air Canada Silver Broom, with a day-by-day, draw-by-draw look at that event from 29 years ago.
For part two of the 1980 Silver Broom, we’ll look at the field of 10 teams.

For the 1980 Silver Broom, Canada was, yet again, represented by a team of rookies — to the world’s. But Rick Folk’s experienced rink of cornslingers from Saskatoon — Ron Mills, third, Tom Wilson, second, Jim Wilson lead (pictured here) — was anything but inexperienced. Many Canadians thought the team could erase Labonte’s Curse (see previous entry).
The defending champ was back for an attempt at back-to-back crowns.
Norway’s Kristian Soerum had returned with most of his rink from 1979. One key ingredient, his brother Morten, was no longer at third. In his place, Eigil Ramsfjell moved up from second. Gunnar Meland moved up from lead to second and Harald Ramsfjell joined the team at lead.
Another world champion skip was also back in the mix.
Ragnar Kamp of Sweden won the world title in is home country in 1977. This was his first time back to the Silver Broom since that win and would be his last appearance ever, although that was not for a lack of trying.
After moving to a new country, Kamp twice tried to win that nation’s crown, skipping Nova Scotia in the 1984 and 1989 Briers.
Kamp had a whole new team with him in 1980 from the world championship squad of just three years earlier. Among the team was second Thomas Hakansson, who, like Kamp, would skip Nova Scotia at a Brier (1988).
Also in the lineup of skips was future world champ Jurg Tanner of Switzerland. This was his first world championship but he had won the European Championship in 1978.
Also in the field was Paul Pustovar of Hibbing, Minn., who would represent the U.S. on a few more occasions over the next 25 years.
Interestingly, there were three rinks that had the skips throwing something other than the last rocks.
France’s Henri Muller threw lead stones, while Germany’s Franz Engler and Italy’s Giuseppe Dal Molin were throwing third rocks
Dal Molin was experienced at the world level. This was his sixth world championship in seven years. He had only missed out on the 1978 Silver Broom. Dal Molin’s best performance had been a fifth at the 1976 Silver Broom. In all of his previous Silver Broom appearances, Dal Molin threw last rocks and skipped. This was the first time he had relinquished control of the final stones to Andrea Pavani.
The other skips were Barton Henderson of Scotland and Jorn Blach of Denmark.

Next up: the opening day