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![\"MICHAEL](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/4452109_web1_23011134_MELESCHUK2.jpg\")
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MICHAEL BURNS SR. PHOTO<\/p>\n
Meleschuk (standing) with teammates Dave Romano (from left), Pat Hailley and John Hanesiak at the 1972 World Champion in Germany<\/p>\n
Meleschuk is still tied with his good friend John Usackis for the most appearances in the Manitoba men\u2019s provincial playdowns, at 30.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a fiery guy. Very competitive. Hated to lose, and I didn\u2019t like to lose either,\u201d said Usackis, who threw third on Meleschuk\u2019s Tankard-winning team in 1989, the second provincial title for the skip.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe opposition would make a good shot and he\u2019d get mad, and he\u2019d kick rocks around, smash his broom. I remember one time I was curling with him, and we were curling in Regina, in a cash spiel \u2026 I missed a shot, peeling a guard or something, and he got mad, and he kicked rocks around. I said, \u2018Orest, relax, take it easy.\u2019 And then he says, \u2018Oh, you want to relax?\u2019 He was really competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s also what made The Big O so great.<\/p>\n
Meleschuk died peacefully on June 23 in Selkirk, a short time after becoming ill. He was 86.<\/p>\n
He grew up in St. Boniface with his parents and two sisters. His mother had immigrated to Winnipeg from Poland and his father from Ukraine in the mid-1920s, and they later met in the provincial capital.<\/p>\n
As a youngster, Meleschuk played baseball in the summertime and hockey in the winter months, skating on a team with future NHLer Ted Green during his minor hockey years.<\/p>\n
When he reached adolescence, Meleschuk became interested in curling and began to make the short walk down the road to the Heather Curling Club, where he would spend hours honing his craft, much to the chagrin of his mother, his son Sean said.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t BORIS MINKEVICH \/ FREE PRESS FILES<\/p>\n From left: Pat Hailley, Orest Meleschuk, Dave Romano and John Hanesiak were the winners of the 1972 Brier.<\/p>\n \u201cAt that time, a lot of curlers would be delivering on their knees. They would have the Manitoba Tuck delivery, so not a lot of flat deliveries. So he really honed his delivery based on (three-time Brier champion) Ken Watson, and he spent a lot of time at the curling club,\u201d said Sean.<\/p>\n \u201cGrowing up in a first-generation family, his mother would\u2019ve wanted him to spend more time at school, pursuing a higher education than \u2018wasting his time at the curling club.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Those hours would pay off, though.<\/p>\n Aside from his time at the rink, Meleschuk spent a decade as a civil technologist for the Canadian consulting firm Wardrop Engineering. He worked on several big projects, including one he was particularly fond of that took a couple of summers to complete: helping to bring safe drinking water to the Inuit communities of Cape Dorset and Frobisher Bay in the late 1960s and early \u201970s.<\/p>\n Meleschuk then worked for the City of Selkirk for 20 years, finishing his career with the Town of Beaus\u00e9jour \u2014 in both cases serving as a public works supervisor.<\/p>\n \u201cCertainly, if I had to characterize it, growing up it was probably family, then curling, then career,\u201d Sean said, ranking his father\u2019s priorities. \u201cAnd I\u2019m sure in the wintertime it switched to curling as the top priority. He always enjoyed his work, and I think he was always pretty proud of the work he did, but I\u2019m not sure if it was his driver.\u201d<\/p>\n Sean and his father had a strong relationship. After Meleschuk and his first wife, Pat, divorced, Sean\u2019s sister Karin moved with her mother to Vancouver while Sean stayed with his father in Selkirk.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t BORIS MINKEVICH \/ FREE PRESS FILES<\/p>\n Orest Meleschuk, seen here letting a rock go at the Strathcona Senior Mens Provincial Championship in 2002, died in June at the age of 86.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were pretty close, and I think he did a good job of raising me,\u201d Sean said. \u201cRaising a teenager on your own probably isn\u2019t the easiest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Sean called his father\u2019s demeanour at home \u201cfair, firm and friendly.\u201d They both loved the outdoors. Time spent playing sports and gardening was where they bonded \u2014 although Sean wasn\u2019t particularly interested in the latter but says he sucked it up to please his father.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the biggest memories for me, outside of curling, was skiing with him. Every winter we\u2019d go to Banff, Lake Louise, Fernie \u2014 we\u2019d go into the mountains and do a trip,\u201d Sean recalled. \u201cI remember him telling me that if he had discovered skiing, he probably wouldn\u2019t have turned to curling as a young man, but he didn\u2019t have those opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n But the path that Meleschuk chose worked out quite well.<\/p>\n By the mid-1960s he was one of the top competitive men\u2019s curlers in the province, gaining steam as a potential future contender on the national stage.<\/p>\n Meleschuk curled in his first provincial championship in 1963 as the third for Barry Fry\u2019s team, which kickstarted a longstanding career in the competitive scene.<\/p>\n Usackis knew Meleschuk as competition before he ever knew him as a friend. The two officially connected in the mid-\u201960s as Usackis\u2019s team was down a player and needed someone to fill in for a bonspiel in Pine Falls. He turned to Fry first, but he declined and recommended Meleschuk, who quickly accepted the chance to get on the ice.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said, \u2018OK, I\u2019ll come out.\u2019 And I said, \u2018OK, we have to play at 8 o\u2019clock the next morning.\u2019 This was a Thursday night. So he showed up and we ended up winning the bonspiel,\u201d said Usackis.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t BORIS MINKEVICH \/ FREE PRESS FILES<\/p>\n Meleschuk, pictured in 2017, raised his son, Sean, in Selkirk.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew I was getting a good player. He had a good delivery, threw a great rock. He was a great player.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Meleschuk and Usackis went their separate ways and maintained their own teams on the ice for many years after that \u2014 due to Meleschuk playing out of Winnipeg and Usackis being in Lac Du Bonnet \u2014 they remained close friends for more than six decades.<\/p>\n After years of knocking on the door of provincial supremacy, Meleschuk finally broke through with his Fort Rouge rink of Dave Romano, John Hanesiak and Pat Hailley, going undefeated in the provincial playdowns. That preceded one of his greatest triumphs, the 1972 Brier in St. John\u2019s, N.L., where the Manitobans went 9-1.<\/p>\n At the World Championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, Meleschuk faced the United States, skipped by Bob LaBonte, in the championship final where one of the most infamous moments in the sport took place.<\/p>\n After Meleschuk\u2019s misthrow in the 10th end, LaBonte leaped in celebration, thinking his team had won the game, but slipped and kicked a stone on the way down. The burned rock awarded the Canadians a game-tying deuce to force an extra end.<\/p>\n Meleschuk, given new life, spun a beautiful draw to the button in the extra end that would prove to be the winning shot.<\/p>\n \u201cI think he\u2019d want to be remembered as a great competitive curler. He loved competitive curling more than he liked recreational curling,\u201d Sean said.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t CHRISTOPHER PIKE \/ BRANDON SUN FILES<\/p>\n Orest Meleschuk Manitoba\u2019s Credit Unions Masters Men\u2019s Championship at the Brandon Curling club in Brandon on Friday March 9, 2007.<\/p>\n \u201cI know that he was not particularly happy always being remembered for the way he won his world championship, as opposed to being the world champion,\u201d Sean added. \u201cHe never really wanted to talk very much about that game and how it transpired, and the LaBonte Curse and whatnot, but he was certainly very proud of being a world champion.\u201d<\/p>\n Orest continued to curl competitively in Manitoba until the early 2000s, achieving provincial titles in 1989 (Manitoba Men\u2019s), 1996 (Manitoba Senior Men\u2019s) and 2002 (Manitoba Masters).<\/p>\n He was inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame (1985) and the Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame (1991, 2011, 2022) for his success.<\/p>\n Meleschuk\u2019s 1989 squad included Sean at lead, Usackis at third and John Hyrich at second.<\/p>\n The foursome lost its zone to qualify for provincials and had to go through the Manitoba Curling Association bonspiel to qualify, which they wound up doing after reaching the semifinals. The Meleschuks, Usackis and Hyrich went 6-1 en route to winning the provincial playdowns. That run has a story of its own.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a friend of John Usackis\u2019s that had a dream. She had a dream that she saw John winning the province that year, and the team was all wearing white sweaters. So John\u2019s wife went out and bought us all white sweaters, so we wore white sweaters to the provincial playdowns and we obviously then had a good run and won the province,\u201d Sean explained.<\/p>\n \u201cCertainly, that was a pretty exciting time for all of us, myself especially. Being able to win with my dad and curl with my dad and go on to the Brier, especially in Saskatoon where it\u2019s a huge curling community. We were curling in front of 12,000-15,000 people in the Saskatoon arena at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n \t\t\tThe Warm-Up<\/p>\n Winnipeg Jets Game Days<\/p>\n On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop.<\/p>\n
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