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By Nolan Thiessen

Recently on CurlingZone, there was a good discussion about the effect the Olympics have had on competitive curling. As far as CurlingZone debates go, this was fairly tame with the discussion being mostly free of trolling and was a frank discussion about the Olympics, our game, and what changes — if any — can be made.

The foundation of the discussion was from a blog written by Mike Fournier from Quebec. I will link to it here because it is a good read with lots of strong points. I do disagree with a few points and will provide the counter-argument from someone who is in the top 10 teams. General consensus I got from the article is that the top 10 teams have benefited from the advancement of the sport due to the Olympic movement but overall it has been a detriment to the next level of teams beneath the top 10. This is a good topic that needs to be discussed but can be looked at a few different ways.

This feeling of “competitive curling is dying” is not new. I have heard the cry of the sport at that level dying in Canada for quite a while. In all honesty the basis for the argument is the dwindling numbers in playdowns and in my opinion a romanticism of what the Brier means to many curlers in this country. You cannot argue with the decrease in playdown numbers, which I think is attributed to a few factors I will get to. I think the romanticism of the Brier and our sport is based on some false premise that teams used to be able to throw together a club team and could dream that they could be world champions.

The dirty little secret is that for quite a while that feeling has always been just that: a dream. Take a look at the past winners, especially since 1980, everyone other than probably Mike Riley were tour teams who are battle-tested for the big moment. If there were tour stats back until 1980 the names of the Brier champs would be littered all over the winning names through the tour season. I don’t see many “Hoosiers” stories in the last 35 years that give credence to the dream. In the last 34 Briers there have been 19 different skips to win (these 19 include Wayne Middaugh, Glenn Howard and Randy Ferbey who all won previous Briers at lower positions on other teams).

Do you know why there are so few changes at the top? Because there are so few teams that can — and are willing to — put in the effort it takes to win.

That is not to say that teams cannot climb the mountain. It just means that the blueprint is out there and it does not include being on the ice two times a week. Teams like the one I am currently on, Mike McEwen’s Manitoba team as well as our current Brier champions and Olympic entry Brad Jacobs have all climbed the rankings into the top five in the past eight years. These teams all made sacrifices and got better, not without some hardships along the way. There will always be teams that want to be the best; but who is willing to put in that work, make ends meet for your team (possibly out of your pocket) and get better every season until you become elite? It’s very hard to be the best; that is what makes it so special when you win, not everyone can do it. It means you accomplished something.

Every one of Koe, McEwen and Jacobs have gotten crushed at times on tour, and did it with minimal sponsorship and support, but none of them gave up and now reap some of the rewards for their efforts.

What sticks in my craw is the feeling that the “elite” teams and the CCA are somehow are killing the game. My take on it is that the sacrifices that these teams have made are not small and should not be looked down upon. I find it hard to feel a great deal of sorrow for those who will not or cannot make the sacrifices in order to be the best in the country.

I for one gave up a $100,000 a year job in order to chase the Olympic dream. I did this with the support of my wife and kids. I do not get to see my kids for long stretches of the winter, do not get to see my one-year-old son every day or see my girls compete every weekend in their chosen sports of ringette and gymnastics. Should you feel sorry for me? Hell no! But these are sacrifices that I made that others are unwilling to make. The funding that my team gets from sponsors and national funding agencies (which are based on results) helps but I am by no means getting rich off of curling. My wife is a career-driven women whose job helps enable me to chase my dream. I know what I am giving up and what I am getting out of it.

I am just saying that every single elite athlete that wants to step onto that podium has to forego something in order to achieve those goals and the willingness to do this should not be looked down upon, it should be applauded. Nobody should be given anything and nobody is owed anything. Hard work gets you to the top. We applaud the bobsledders, lugers, speed skaters, figure skaters and all of Canada’s Olympians who give up many years of their lives to win medals for themselves and their country in the Olympic games, why is it a bad thing when curlers do it?

Now I know that the feeling in many parts of the country is that sponsorship resources are not there for many teams to chase the dream. The truth is that economy differences throughout our country do make it difficult for some teams to obtain sponsorship to help with expenses on the road. This excuse is hard to stomach as there are many teams that have become something great with limited resources. They simply have a drive to succeed that others do not.

Brad Jacobs joked constantly as late as last year about driving to every event to save costs. They did it because they knew they had to go out and compete against the best and they found a way to get there and saving costs wherever they could. Brad Gushue’s team faces excessive travel costs but they are at every Grand Slam because they know what it takes to climb the mountain. Staying where you are comfortable in your own neck of the woods is not a recipe for success. So for many teams to claim “they do not have the resources” is also saying they do not have the drive.

The evolution of our sport is also one of the reasons for the diminishing number of playdown entries. I think it is safe to say that curling in the middle of the 20th century was a very flat structure. You had clubs filled with men’s, ladies and mixed leagues and most teams entered playdowns, because that is what curlers did. Above that there was still an elite group in the country that travelled around and competed against each other and those were the teams that often won the Brier (think of car spiels and some of the Bill Hunter big cash events of yesteryear). Curling was a rectangle with a little bubble of elite on top.

Take hockey as a comparison. Easy to say that hockey is thriving in this country and would be classified as a pyramid easily:

• The top of the pyramid would be the NHL (30 teams — 25 players on each team — 750 guys total).

• The next level would be affiliated professional teams like the AHL / ECHL (60 teams) and the KHL (28 teams).

• Minor professional leagues that are unaffiliated with any NHL teams throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe (too many to count).

• Organized leagues of senior hockey throughout Canada.

• Beer leagues and weekend warriors.

Curling in 2014 would loosely be made up of:

• Top 10-15 teams in the world who play in every Grand Slam and attempt to win national, world and Olympic titles.

• Teams 20-200 who play on average three-to-five tour events per year and go into playdowns.

• League curlers who play for the fun of the sport (over 200 clubs with curlers in various leagues in Canada alone).

• Weekend warriors and curlers who play in one or two fun events a year with friends or through their workplace.

Does it not seem that curling is just starting to take the formation of other major sports into more of a pyramid shape? I don’t think that is anything to freak out over, it is an evolution that almost every sport has underwent in the maturation process. Curlers are still out there playing the sport; their goals are just taking different forms.

I have talked to a friend of mine who is involved in the day-to-day activities of a curling club here in Edmonton as an active board member for many years. He said leagues are still full, particularly open leagues; however the club curler who used to go into playdowns doesn’t anymore. Men’s and ladies leagues are often full, however, that is where their curling aspirations end: league play. In my mind that is a function of what people are looking for from curling. Playing in a men’s league does not mean you are trying to be one of the best in the world, it might just mean you enjoy the social aspect of being active and doing something with your time with your friends.

The big issue I have with the post is that no matter how you look at it, teams 20-200 in the world are actually still the upper echelon of our sport. Teams 20 through 200 who still play in a few WCT tour events each year make up a little less than 800 curlers, still the upper 10 percent of the sport. Say on the low end that each of the 200 clubs across Canada have men’s leagues with on an average of eight teams. That is 1,600 teams, 6,400 players on the men’s side alone. I would say that if you talked to them the majority would not feel as though they are being slighted in any way by the high-end of the sport.

His main ideas for change were to have events like the Canada Cup and the Continental Cup abolished as they are just methods to line the pockets of the elite teams. Taking a step back from these and looking at their use in the sport would change most people’s minds. In reality, the Canada Cup is used by the CCA as a vehicle for teams to obtain entry into the Olympic trials. Using the Canada Cup for this instead of the Brier is a way for the CCA to open it up to all teams, not just teams that win their provinces. That way provinces that have two or three elite teams can have all of their teams into an event where the Olympic trials carrot is on the line instead of only sending one hope to the Brier each year with a chance to get into the process.

The Continental Cup (for all its detractors) is another way to showcase the sport to the general public. Team competitions are always fun to watch and pitting Canada (and up until this year North America) against the World in team competition is a fun way to get people talking and get another 25 hours of curling coverage on TV. In my mind the more curling that finds its way onto TV the better for our sport.

If you kill the Canada and Continental Cup, what makes up those 25-35 hours of TV coverage? Other curling events? Highly unlikely. One of the ways to grow the sport at all levels is to get it into homes for people to see. Live sports is TV’s golden goose right now as the advent of social media makes it impossible to just PVR a game and watch it later without knowing the outcome. Therefore people watch sports in real-time, and as a function of that also have to watch the commercials which is great for advertisers and the people who put programming on TV. Nobody PVR’s all Brier games for a week without seeing one score and then sits down and watches them all in succession like a season of Breaking Bad or The Wire. So taking curling off TV would not be a way to help anyone in the sport.

The last thought was to make the Brier a strictly amateur event, without the likes of Howard and Martin. To me, that seems to be what the Dominion championships has tried to create and has been successful in doing in the past few years. I know multiple people throughout Canada that specifically do not enter Brier playdowns so that they are eligible for the Dominion’s as it is an exciting incentive that they would like to go after. I would think this contributes to the declining playdown numbers as teams do not want to mess up their chances at the Dominion by qualifying for provincials only to lose out at that level. These teams are still in the sport, which is great. It does not have to be in the Brier playdowns to be considered a success for our sport. The Dominion’s has created another option for curlers in our country to be able to compete in and look forward to. 

If we are really in the business of helping the second level of competitive curlers I really feel as though the compilation of the World Curling Tour events is what really needs to be addressed. In my mind what we have lost in the last 10 years is the “middle” purse events on the WCT. When I first started playing there were a myriad of events below $30,000 total purse (which there still are) as well as a handful of events between $30,000 and $50,000 (Bonnyville, Lloydminster and Wainwright in Alberta alone were events 10 years ago which have all went the way of the dodo) and then the upper echelon $100,000 Canada Cups and Grand Slams. We seemed to have lost the “middle” purse events for various reasons. The tour’s ability to keep these events running is vital to the success of many curlers and I will explain why.

One of the critical errors an event can make is trying to be too big. I have said numerous times that I feel like Lloydminster lost their event when they upped the purse from $50,000 to $75,000. When the purse was $50,000 it drew the Alberta and Saskatchewan elite (Martin, Ferbey, Simmons, Park, King, etc.) and the rest of the 32-team field was full of teams that would classify themselves as 20 through 200 on tour. The purse was big enough to draw the local “elite” but not draw the rest of Canada’s best due to travel costs. This meant that normally the elite teams would qualify but the rest of the field still felt like they had a shot at qualifying and earning some money for their troubles with the remaining four playoff spots. By upping their purse to $75,000 it created a super event where every top team in Canada would attend meaning that spots 11-32 in the field felt like the hill was too high to climb to qualify and they decided to no longer enter.

I really feel as though events with purses in the $35,000 to $55,000 level, especially in the early part of the season when teams are just getting their feet wet, is what needs to be protected and brought back. These events bring the elite curlers to smaller centres in Canada, keeps the middle of the pack teams on the tour with a realistic chance to qualify, earn money and not feel like donators to the cause.

I always come back to this when we discuss whether the professionalism of our game is a good thing or not. The rest of the world has teams that are full-time curlers that are out there trying to beat our brains in for world titles and Olympic gold. If we were to spread our sport out even more in Canada and we proceeded to start finishing out of the medals at worlds or off the podium at the Olympics what would be the feeling in this country? Would there not be an outcry to fund the elite again and get Canada back on top?

I think competitive curling has more of a crisis of self-image instead of a crisis of participation that will cause death. The best of the best will continue to push each other to get better and leave behind those who do not have the will to succeed. Nothing comes easy in sport, it is hard, and that is the way it should be. It makes it sweeter when you finally get to the top of the mountain.