About this episode

Toby McDonald shares his journey in curling, including his historic Brier win and coaching experiences.

Toby McDonald always chose to wake up with a smile. From his beginnings at the St. John's Curling Club, Toby had a passion for the sport and its evolution in Newfoundland and Labrador. His crowning acheivement was winning the Brier in 1976 with skip Jack MacDuff and the front end of Doug Hudson and Ken Templeton. Their victory was the first for Newfoundland, which joined Canada in 1949 and the Brier in 1951. It would be another 41 years before Brad Gushue captured another title for the province. Toby shares memories from his early days to coaching at the 2022 Brier and everything in between. He revisits the 2006 Olympic games and explains how Russ Howard joined Brad, Mark Nicols, Jamie Korab and Mike Adam to win a gold medal. Toby passed away on January 24, 2025.

People in this episode

Host: Kevin Palmer

Guest: Toby McDonald

Topics covered

• curling
• sports history
• Olympic games
• coaching
• Newfoundland and Labrador

Keywords

• curling
• Brier
• Newfoundland
• Olympics
• Toby McDonald
• sports history
• coaching

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Newfoundland and Labrador

More episodes of Curling Legends Podcast

• Episode 101 - Team Bruce Roberts · April 4, 2026 · 1h 35m
• Episode 100 - Kerry Burtnyk · February 8, 2026 · 2h 52m
• Special Episode - Colleen Jones · January 28, 2026 · 1h 12m
• Episode 99 - John Kawaja · December 31, 2025 · 1h 56m
• Episode 98 - Bob Nichols · June 30, 2025 · 2h 8m
• Episode 97 - Beau Welling · June 23, 2025 · 55 min

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