Year-end Blog - Plus more unfounded and ridiculous rumours!!!

My curling shoes have been put into their summer storage location, in the back of a muddled closet- waiting to be pulled out after a season of golf shoes, cleats and flip flops comes to an end next September.

The season is over, but for those of us not on the Grand Salami Curling Tour, the season really ended a few months back at Provincials.

Normally, I would try to satiate my yearning for curling with the Mixed, or some other Springtime competition substitute, but this year it was not meant to be. So my curling shoes go into a closet.

The Year of the Broom.

Hard to write a year-end column without talking about sweeping. Our sport has evolved what feels like 10 years in the last year.

As long ago as early September, people still used 2 sweepers, used hair brooms and I did not have to know the names of the people playing front end for me. But all that changed, first with Gushue and the one sweeper, then the Balance Plus/Hardline controversy over how abrasive is too abrasive? Then a litany of rules and regulations, of banned devices – of broom monitoring.

So where are we?

Obviously all the vitriolic and bad blood over this issue have not been good for our sport, but it has called attention to the idea that equipment needs to be regulated. The sport’s governing bodies were ill-prepared for the debate (and not sure they could have been).

So now everyone eagerly awaits the “Sweeping Summit”, the announced WCF initiative that will once and for all (!!!) solve all the problems and settle the rules, techniques and equipment list that will be allowed. Apparently this will happen in May.

Here are my hopes for the summit:

THE DATA NEEDS TO BE PUBLIC!!!!

So far, much of the testing that has resulted in bans and regulations has been kept confidential. This is unacceptable. We need to see the data. This process needs to be 100% transparent and objective. Curling has a number of brainy stats nerds that know how to look at data and draw conclusions (of which I am definitely one!). But without the data, the whole thing becomes hearsay. So far, there have been numerous questions about the impartiality and objectiveness of the testing process. If this continues, then the summit will be a disaster.

It needs to provide competitive curlers with clear guidelines that make sense.

I think “Carving” will need to be reigned-in.

SWEEPERS WILL NEED TO BECOME LESS EFFECTIVE

This seems like a weird statement. But the fact is – curling is more fun to watch when there is a possibility of missing. Hammy McMillan (former World Champion from Scotland) made the point in a Facebook post during the Worlds that the game is now all about the sweepers – less about the throwers. Admittedly if you can always make a soft weight hit fall back or curl and extra 6 inches – there is no reason to ever miss – regardless of how you throw it. The evolution of the game will be that everyone will need to have beastly sweepers that get better at controlling the rock – that is unless we make them less effective.

Sweepers have always played a big role in the game. Can anyone argue that Hemmings would have had the same success without the sweeping of Ness/Thibodeau? Or would the Ferbey 4 have won all those championships without Huff and Puff? Big sweepers have always helped. 

But in the past they could only do so much. Now with a brand new pad – on an IcePad, or a Balance Plus, or a Performance – even an average sweeper can move the rock around. Yes part of it is technique, but the newness and abrasiveness of the pad is obviously an issue as well.

Throwing the rock still has to be the core skill that we value in the game.

So what is the solution?

I think it will come down to some fabric regulations and limiting broom switching.

We are going to have to scale down the abrasiveness of the fabric used in competition. 

Also, this seems only to be an issue with new pads. (this is why teams at the Worlds last week were switching brooms so often – to try to keep a “sharp” new head for making a rock curl A LOT when needed). So do we ban new pads? Is this practical?  Or is there a fabric that we can agree on that is less abrasive- and therefore less effective – even when new?

What about one-broom – one head per sweeper per game? Probably a good move; sweepers are less likely to use brand new heads in a game if the only sweeping tool they can use is excessively sharp (what if your skip has to throw a draw against 2 or 3 in the first end?) We want sweepers with brooms that are effective, but not ridiculous.

I hear the Slam is testing a one broom per side of the sheet rule at the Players. Not sure what this does yet. 

I just hope this all ends with the Sweeping Summit!

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I am excited to start the new season! It has been a while since I have had a new team. New Teams always fill you with hope. You are undefeated! You are invincible! The new season is full of potential.

Here is our Team Facebook page - in case you want to follow. Not much new content yet - but surely lots to come!

Team G-Soft Facebook page

***

So Phil Ménard called me out on Facebook – announcing that Team Ménard is sticking together for another year contrary to the “ludicrous and unfounded” rumours to the contrary.

Phil – I ask you – what is the point of having a curling blog if you can’t spread ludicrous and unfounded rumours about curling teams!?! 

So without further delay – here are the list of the top Quebec curling rumours that I hope hoping to encourage by spreading them here.

• Team Menard is staying together – but not in Curling! They are forming an accapella signing group; “The Outturns” after coming to the realization that there is more money to be made in music than curling. Look for their new single downloadable on iTunes: “An In-turn broke by heart, so I dumped it!”
• Tired of having to actually compete to get to the Scotties, Rachel Homan will play out of the newly created Chelsea Curling Club in Gatineau! (which actually is presently playing out of the Ottawa CC).  In a related story, the few remaining competitive women’s teams in Quebec simultaneously announce their retirement!
• Hardline has announced that the new Fabric used on their heads will consist of Trojan lubricated condoms. The new heads will be available in the current size, or the new Hardline Magnum 10-inch size. 
• In a related story, the WCF immediately announced a ban on sweeping materials that "warm to the touch" or are "ribbed for her pleasure." 
• Brad Gushue is leaving curling to pursue a career in the UFC. Said Gushue: “I figure nobody can hit me as hard as I hit myself on the ice.”
• Bob Desjardins has successfully cloned himself 3 times, and will now skip a team consisting of Bob Desjardins, Bob Desjardins, Bob Desjardins and Bob Desjardins. The Team has not yet announced who will skip. Said Desjardins: “Some guy told me I should just go home and play with myself – so I took his advice!”
• In an effort to equalize the broom debate, Curling Canada will declare that the 8-inch angle Brownie is now the only sweeping device accepted for use in competition, as it has been deemed to be equally ineffective in the hands of most sweepers. While they are no-longer "commercially available", they can be stolen off the spare-broom rack from just about every curling club in Canada.
• Pat Simmonds will replace Guy Hemmings to skip the Trépannier brothers and Simon Benoît. Said Simmonds of the announcement: “I have no idea who these guys are, but they were really persistent and I just didn’t want to go back to Saskatchewan.”  
• The new Centre Videotron in Quebec City will be converted into a curling club later this year. Said Quebec Mayor Régis Lebaume: “If we cannot get the Nordiques, then we might as well  f*&%ing go curling, tabernak!”

That is all for now Cats and Kittens, have a good summer.