Tim Hortons and the Brier seemed so right for each other. There are few things more Canadian than Tim Hortons. And there are few sports more Canadian than curling.

The two will go their separate ways after this year’s Brier. The relationship ends after 18 years with Tim Hortons as the title sponsor of the Brier and the Olympic curling trials.

Tim Hortons is one of only four Brier sponsors since its inception in 1927. That is pretty amazing. The first was Macdonald Tobacco, followed by Labatt Breweries and Nokia.

The first Brier, held in Toronto, included teams from New Brunswick, Northern Ontario, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Saskatchewan, as well as ones from Toronto and Montreal. By 1940, it was a national event, moving around the country after 13 years in Toronto.

Oswald Barkwell of Yellow Grass was our representative at the first one. Actually, he is listed as representing Western Canada. He finished with a 3-4 record.

Saskatchewan didn’t win a Brier until 1955, when the great Garnet Campbell took home the hardware. I had the privilege of curling against Campbell twice about 25 years after he won the Brier.

In the days before a team could quit early, Campbell defeated New Brunswick’s Ken Everett 30-3 in the 1957 Brier. Games were 12 ends in those days.

I curled with one of Campbell’s nephews, RoyEvans, for a bunch of years in the 1970s. We never had the success, or close to it, of Uncle Garnet.

Our only other Brier winners from Saskatchewan have been Ernie Richardson (four times), HarveyMazinke and Rick Folk.

Anyway, I was shocked when I heard the news of Tim Hortons pulling its sponsorship. Tim Hortons made the announcement in the namby-pamdy way you expect with these announcements.

“For the past 20 years, Tim Hortons and our restaurant owners have been proud to support curling Canada and sponsor this iconic and world-class sporting event in Canada,” Tim Hortons chief marketing officer Hope Bagozzi said in a news release.

“And we look forward to continuing to introduce the game to new curlers and support curling programs in communities all across Canada.”Clearly, Tim Hortons made a business decision, which might not be surprising, given the recent history of the company.

Tim Hortons was a Canadian-owned company until 2014, when Burger King purchased it for $ 11.4 billion US. That is a lot of dough.

The two chains became subsidiaries of the Canadian-American holding companyRestaurantBrands International, which is majority-owned by Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital.

Even with its head office in Toronto, it is easy to speculate that those who grew up with Tims aren’t solely making decisions on how sponsorship dollars are spent.

We should thank Tim Hortons for its support of curling, which goes back to 1996 in one form or another.

I will still have a double chocolate donut when it presents itself. I will sneak a Timbit or two out of the box when my grandchildren are at my home. I am not a coffee drinker, but if I was, I would be more a Tims person than one of those high-falutin Starbucks people.

To get back on track, Macdonald Tobacco sponsored the Brier for more than 50 years, with its final one in 1979. Macdonald was forced out by the anti-tobacco movement. Up until that point, and a few years beyond at the club level, curlers could smoke while playing.

There was a time when I smoked on the ice. There were ashtrays along the sheets. Curling gloves got this horrible nicotine stain between the index and middle fingers.

A person would be sweeping, with ashes falling in front of the rock. Guys smoked cigars and pipes on the ice as well. I remember the skip I was playing for made one of those around-the-horn triples, and other skip almost swallowing his cigar. Truth be told, we were hoping for a double.

Smoking seemed so normal at the time. We smoked in university classes. We smoked in offices. People smoked on airplanes. In 1980, Labatt’s Brewery became the title sponsor. I covered that Brier for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, with Rick Folk winning it in Calgary.

It was fun covering a team comprised of people I had curled with and against.

It is hard to believe our province hasn’t won a Brier since. When we last won, the Toronto Maple Leafs were only 13 years into their streak of futility.

When Labatt stepped aside in 2000, Nokia stepped in, signing a five-year deal with Curling Canada. It seemed odd to have a telecommunication company based in Finland sponsoring the Brier.

When Nokia chose not to renew its deal, Tim Hortons came on board in 2005.

The rest was going to be history, or so I thought until Nov. 29.

• Cam Hutchinson