Fuji Miki’s first introduction to curling was in Midway, a border town in the West Kootenays, when his family was interned during the Second World War. At the war’s conclusion he moved to South Burnaby where he resided for 50 years.

After a successful playing career, in which he played lead for BC men’s champion Glen Pierce in 1979, and second for Pierce when they won the Canadian mixed championship in 1982, Miki took up coaching. One of his first coaching successes was to guide a junior men’s team that included his son Bryan (a 2017 Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame inductee) at second and Pierce’s son Brent at skip to a 1987 provincial championship.

That year he came into contact with the Japanese Olympic committee at a curling clinic during the world championship in Vancouver. Miki eventually coached Japanese women’s teams for 16 years through four Olympics (Salt Lake City, Torino, Vancouver and Sochi). Miki would reside in Japan during the curling season helping to build a program that has become a force in international curling, especially on the women’s side.

He would also coach Japanese men’s teams when they came to Canada to compete on the cashspiel circuit. During their stays, the teams would frequently be based at Miki’s home club, the Royal City Curling Club in New Westminster. Even after his international coaching career concluded, Miki continued to coach at Royal City and even coached his grandson, Joshua, at the 2022 Canadian Junior Curling Championship.

Lynn Mason was a founding family member of the Burnaby Winter Club. In 2009, he was inducted as an honorary member for his many contributions. An accomplished curler, he played a major part in organizing senior hockey at the club, including one of the most amazing tournaments in the world… a tournament for players 75 years and older, first held in 2009.

Organizing this kind of tournament was nothing new to Mason who had been doing that sort of thing since the early 1960s. The beginning of senior hockey has grown throughout the province and Lynn Mason played a major role in it.

While growing up in South Burnaby, Bryan Miki was schooled in the art of curling by his father Fuji, who had won provincial and Canadian championships. Bryan’s superb shooting and sweeping skills landed him a spot as the second for skip Greg McAulay.

That team won a provincial title in 1998 and went on to represent B.C. at the Brier, the Canadian men’s curling championship, in Winnipeg. The foursome finished tied for fourth with a 7-4 round-robin record before losing a tiebreaker to Saskatchewan.

They were back at the 2000 Brier, this time in Saskatoon. This time, though, they finished first in the round robin (9-2) and defeated legendary skip Russ Howard of New Brunswick in the final 9-5 with Miki curling 98 per cent. A few weeks later at the world championship in Glasgow, Scotland, they again won the round robin (8-1) and downed Sweden’s Peja Lindholm 9-4 in the final making Miki a world champion.

Since the end of his competitive playing days, Miki has turned to coaching junior and elite young men’s teams.