Rising from the ashes: Team Canada wins 2015 Brier as skip Pat Simmons draws the button to beat Northern Ontario

Nobody that I could hear, through my television speakers, was shouting "dee-fence, dee-fence," in Calgary's Saddledome, but that's precisely what the 2015 Brier final was emphatically bellowing at them.

Until it didn't anymore.

Then, it became a wild ride of a stretch, capped by a draw to the button by a man who didn't even begin the week throwing fourth stones for the victorious Team Canada. A 6-5 win over Northern Ontario furnished a climax to a story that - had it been written by Dickens - would've been called "A Tale of Two Briers."

That'd be right on two fronts. A championship game that was at first ruled by blank ends, up-weight rock removal and only a few interesting scenarios through more than the halfway point, hit the finish line in style. Same thing for the 2015 champions.

When it was over, Team Canada - Pat Simmons, John Morris, Carter Rycroft and Nolan Thiessen - had its win over the 2014 Olympic and 2013 Brier champions, skipped by Brad Jacobs. The victory completes a remarkable rise from the ashes that began after a 2 and 3 start to the week, and a change in skips.

Simmons drew the button with his final shot of the eleventh end, besting a Jacobs shot rock that lay in the four-foot, buried behind a guard. It was a fitting finish for Simmons, who'd taken over for Morris after that fifth game, leading the team to a record of 8 and 1 down the stretch, including the championship decision. The shot also put the finishing touches on a furious last few ends, after a snoozy start.

Simmons, Rycroft and Thiessen - champions of the 2014 Brier when Kevin Koe was their skip - rallied during the tournament and rallied during the game, making the first ever Team Canada to appear at nationals a winner.

That, in itself, is quite a story. Koe and company win the 2014 Brier. The skip leaves to form another team. His old team stays together, adds Morris, but plays a limited schedule and they struggle. Hoping they've found their range as The Brier draws near, they instead struggle badly out of the gate, looking like they most certainly are about to fade from playoff contention.

Instead, they reconfigure, recharge and wind up hoisting The Tankard again.

As for the game:

After a tentative, feeling out first end that led to a routine blank, a more aggressive Jacobs emerged in the second end and while another blank was in the offing there as well, it was certainly not so ordinary as the skip got it by flirting with a centre guard, doubling out two Team Canada stones around the four-foot and backing the shooter up and out of the rings. That may have led many to believing that the game was afoot, and that things were about to get interesting. False start. A mundane third end - and another blank - put an end to that feeling quickly.

That was probably Team Canada's best strategy - keep it clean - but the crew from The Soo just looked tight over the first few ends.

The game finally got its first taste of real complication in the fourth and even though it also ended in a blank (the first time a Brier championship game has ever started with four blanks), it was the entertaining kind, with Simmons running a marvellous raise double with his last stone. What looked like, perhaps, a three spot for Northern Ontario was gone, due to some sheer brilliance on the part of Simmons' pistol.

Speaking of pistols, Jacobs spun his six-shooters the following end, with a double raise for two that injected a roar into the crowd, if you could hear it over the blood-curdling hollers of the skip and his team. Not everyone is a fan of their leather-lunged exuberance, but, personally, I'm always delighted to see and hear their excitement and wish there was more of that in curling.

Another blank in six gave way to a nice build by Team Canada and a deuce to tie it in the seventh and, the game then became a heck of a whole lot more interesting. It was becoming more and more aggressive as the teams began to run out of racetrack. Another dandy of an end by Simmons and company meant Northern Ontario was forced into taking a single, forging a 3-2 lead heading into the ninth. There was some great tension at that point.

Team Canada cracked a three in the ninth end, to forge ahead by a 5-3 score. If Simmons had made a last rock double in the tenth - which he didn't miss by much - the game would have been over right there. Instead, Jacobs drew in with his last stone to tie things up.

Then, it was on to the eleventh, where Simmons and Team Canada completed their astounding comeback.