Strange Smells on an Airplane

So – I find myself on a long late night flight home from Vancouver, so why not write a blog.

Forgive me if this blog sounds a bit incoherent, I am writing while watching the Baywatch remake on Air Canada’s crappy in-flight entertainment system. This may well be the worst movie ever made. Not even the slow-mo bikini shots can save this movie.

But the forced confinement of a long flight has given me a burst of creative energy. Not sure if it’s the thin, recycled cabin air or the wafting smell of farts from some unknown culprit sitting around me, but I am feeling especially creative. Here in no particular order, are some thoughts on the upcoming season and curling in general;

•       The big event this year will be the Olympic Trials. Honestly, I think the Trials finals are more exciting (and probably harder to win) than the actual Olympics. Looking forward to it.
•          So who will Canada send to the Olympics? Gushue looks indestructible. They are absolutely the team to beat heading into the Olympic qualifying this year. Other teams are good, but Gushue is perfect. This guy keeps tossing 100% games like they are nothing. Cheering for McEwen though.
•          The pre-trials should also be fun in early November. The pre-trials are a 14-Team event that qualifies 2 teams to be in the final 9 at the Olympic Trials. My 2 picks to make it through to the pre-trials: Simmons and Ménard. Last Olympics, 2 of the teams that made it through the pre-trials ended up in the Trials finals: Jacobs and Cotter. That will not happen this time.
•          Very anxious to see the carnage on the big teams this year once the Olympic dreams die for all but one team. The nation’s top teams are all now forced to stick together for most of an Olympic cycle, so once the Olympic dream fades for all but one of the Big Teams, they will break up faster than teenagers after the prom.
•          I hope Quebec women’s curling can get better. We saw some signs of life last year, with a strong team performing well at the Scotties. I hope we can build off this, and maybe have a Quebec Scotties with more than a handful of teams in attendance. Eve lost the semis at the tough Shorty Jenkins spiel last week – and Quebec juniors Laurie St-Georges actually qualified! I do not remember the last time a Quebec junior girls team even played in an event that big, let alone qualified! Promising.

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Me on a Podcast

Hey Mom, I’m famous now! I was asked to be on the From the Hack Curling Podcast with fellow curling humorist John Cullen. Thanks to Frank for the invite!

John and I randomly opine on what it’s like to be a lowly Tier 2 competitive curler.

Curling Podcasts are the new thing. The From the Hack Podcast, as well as 2 Girls and a Game are providing some much-needed story-telling and discussion for the game in an easily digestible format. Here is the link:

From the Hack podcast

We play this weekend in Ottawa at the RCMP in the Moosehead Fall Open. Its supposed to be 30 and sunny all weekend and I will happily be in a curling club. 

We start Friday against some unknown Quebec team named Ménard. Should be an easy one.

Here is the link for results:

Fall Open

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So my 9-year-old daughter wants to try curling. Finally. 

 I have not pushed my 12 year-old son into the game (he is more into hockey, golf and soccer so far), so this will be the first year where one of my kids actually tries curling. I am excited to see how it works out – to see someone start on a path that I have been on for so many years. 

Will she like it? Will she be good? Will she toe-tuck? Will she want to compete? Will I be one of those crazy curling parents yelling from behind the glass? The journey begins.

Who knows what will come – but it surely will make for a good blog or two!!! I am just blissfully happy that I no longer have to try to pretend to understand the rules of ringuette. 

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Confession: I was actually the guy who was farting on the airplane. #hewhosmeltitdealtit

Burned my Stones

So, as promised, I said I would blog a bit from our tournaments. So here I sit in our Airbnb at midnight, after lots of curling, awaiting our C game tomorrow in the Stu Sells Oakville Classic against Kyle Smith from Scotland.

How is it going? Well we are a solid 2-2, having played 4 teams that are higher ranked than us so far.

We beat Tom Brewster from Scotland, lost to Pat Simmons, beat Dayna Deruelle than lost to Greg Balsdon. All in all not bad, given that all of these teams are theoretically higher ranked than us. But we need 2 more big wins tomorrow to bring home some cash.

This a cool event. There are teams from Korea, Denmark, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, China, Scotland, the US, Sweden, Russia, Japan, Switzerland and possibly even Canada, with many teams prepping for the upcoming winter Olympics.

So what have I learned curling with Olympic hopefuls from around the world?

• I learned that we need an Entourage. It is no longer enough to be a Team of 4. You need a Coach, a nutritionist, a physiotherapist, a masseuse, a psychologist, a videographer, an animal trainer, a court jester, a driver, a biographer, a public relations specialist and an equipment manager. Seriously, teams from around the world do not travel light. Team Fournier will be accepting job applications (volunteer of course!). We already have a coach, but the masseuse position is open!
• I learned that apparently stretching is important. It is so weird to be walking into the curling club, and to see 4 or 5 teams stretching outside, doing calisthenics, with a coach. If I had been caught doing that 20 years ago outside a curling club, I can’t imagine the derision and mockery I would have endured, both from my teammates and the opposition.   
• I learned that I really do not like fusion jazz.
• I learned that there are more and more teams taking curling to a new level now. They have coaches, and discuss each performance in great detail, revisiting every choice thanks to video cameras and iPads recording every moment of every game. Very intense.
• I learned that when your teammate lends you his special muscle rub cream to put on an aching leg, make sure to wash your hands before touching your more sensitive areas. #burnedstones

Anyway, hoping we can pull out a couple of wins tomorrow.

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Sorry to hear of the passing of Marco Ferraro last week. My condolences to his family.

Marco represented Quebec at the 1989 Brier in Chicoutimi, and at a senior national a few years back. He was the head of Curling Quebec for a number of years. But he will best be remembered for being a man of ideas.

While I did not always see eye to eye with Marco in his days as head of Curling Quebec (you can look in my archives and find a few angry blogs with his name in the title),  I always respected the creative genius that he brought to our game.

Curlers do not remember the days of sliding from holes in the ice that often got icy and slippery. Marco invented the modern hack, which of course bears his name. He always looked for ways to make the game more exciting, more marketable and more accessible.

Marco was always full of ideas, passion and love for the game. He is one of the great characters that always pushed the envelope and challenged the status quo. You had to admire him for that.

He will be missed.

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So I watched a bit of the Everest thing on TV last week. I have to say, as a curler it was painful. Apart from Gushue, everybody looked in very early season form. Games were won more on misses than made shots, and the cheesy “I love my new temporary team” moments were awkward. Although they were playing for a winner-take-all $200K purse, consensus seems to be that there was likely some behind-the-scenes split of this among participating teams. So basically, this was a televised early season training game and cash grab for the top 4 men’s and women’s teams in the country. Blech. Truly painful to see an earnest corporate sponsor putting their money into curling, but in such a contrived way.

Also for a game that is increasingly trying to market itself to younger curlers, it is rather troubling that all of the event sponsors were either funeral services, reverse-mortgages or home insurance. Next we will have the Acorn Stair Climber Invitational followed by the Cialis/Viagra Hurry Hard Classic.

Seriously though, I have a hard time watching a new sponsor pour that much money into the game with so little benefit for the game.

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So one interesting thing that did come out of the Everest thingee was the 2 point-pin shot. For this event, they introduced a rule that if your rocks covered the screw hole (the very middle of the circles) it was worth 2 POINTS. This might not sound like much of a change to non-curlers - like a three point shot in basketball – but it totally changes the game.

While I am always open to changes that could make the game more interesting, this one seems like a no-go. It is just too much of a change. So much of the game is managing the scoreboard at the end of a game – controlling the hammer. But this rule makes that impossible.

It did make it more interesting for the Everest event, likely because there were a lot of misses anyway, but I am thinking that this rule might encourage the best teams to keep it even more open, and then draw for a risk-free 2 every end. Or not. Who knows? Just seems like a wildly radical rule change.

Changes like the 5-rock rule are made to encourage more offence – but the game stays fundamentally the same. Seems saner to me than introducing a bonus point for the bulls-eye.

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Update from Monday:

Well that sucked. We lost to Kyle Smith, and came home at 2-3 for the weekend. Not a horrible showing, but short of the money.

Next up, Ottawa at the RCMP curling club in a few weeks.