Thursday, March 15, 2018

How to fix the Brier

For a lot of years I gave Brad Gushue crap. He was undoubtedly a fantastic curler, but his ability to make the Brier play-offs but being unable to close the deal was frustrating. Even winning the Olympic gold medal....there was an element of luck there and I think he's admitted that himself. Having Russ Howard there to help guide the team over the finish line was always going to be an element to that win. I thought he was going to be one of those players who could never get it done. There are plenty of athletes who, as great as they were, never won championships. Gushue was feeling like that.

But two Briers in a row? No, that cements your ticket into the Hall of Fame. They looked absolutely in control every game I watched. Even the last couple of ends of the Final, when they let Alberta back into it, they didn't crack. Five years ago they would have found a way to choke on it. So congrats to him and his team. It's a hell of an accomplishment.

But the other thing Gushue did last week was express his displeasure at the format change this year. Instead of the standard round robin where you play every team, there were two pools, and then a crossover playdown, then playoffs. A lot of curlers grumbled about it but it was devised so that every province and territory could compete. And to balance things out, a Team WildCard was created. And the old standards of Northern Ontario and Team Canada. So 16 teams overall.

Gushue didn't like the format, didn't like Team WildCard, didn't like Team Canada (even if he was Team Canada) and wasn't exactly subtle in expressing his annoyance about the quality of competition. This was a not so thinly veiled shot at teams from Yukon and, more particularly, Nunavut.

I can't link to them because they're behind a paywall, but News North didn't like Gushue's comments. No less than two opinion pieces politely told Gushue to shove it. That Nunavut has the right to be at a national championship along with every other province and territory. And that the only way Nunavut curling will improve is to go to these events and get better.

Also probably riling them up was curling reporter Terry Jones of PostMedia taking shots at Nunavut being at national events. I mean, every single piece he wrote leading up to and during the Scotties and the Brier contained a shot about Nunavut being undeserving of being there. I'd get annoyed too.

(How can I possibly know this? Because part of my job involves putting together a news scan. Take a guess at how much I love doing this during the Scotties and the Brier when the number of stories featuring keywords like Yukon, NWT, and Nunavut effectively doubles. Also, I fucking hate the band the Arctic Monkeys.)

So, a couple of things to unpack here.

First, good on Gushue for actually having an opinion. He's one the premiere curlers in the country and the world right now. It's easy to be quiet and just take the endorsement money, but he doesn't like the format and has no problem letting people know it. I'm sure Curling Canada would prefer he shut up about it, but he's speaking his mind. I rarely have a problem with athletes speaking their mind intelligently on a subject.

As for Nunavut being at events like the Brier and Scotties...

Look, this sounds a touch egotistical, but if I hadn't gone into semi-retirement from curling a few years (that's another story) I might have been good enough to have been on that team. I was, by Iqaluit standards, pretty good. Teams I skipped won league finals, I won bonspiels, I shot second stones on the first men's team to compete at a national level event - The Dominion (a national championship for "rec league" curlers) and we finished 3-3.

So yeah. Maybe I could have gone to the Brier. That would have been cool. But getting whipped almost every single game (they did almost beat Yukon)? Getting outscored 80-28 over the course of the Brier? I'm not sure how much fun that would be.

I know one of the guys on the team. I really must remember to ask him what the experience was like. Maybe it was a blast and he can't wait to go back next year.

Going to the Brier or Scotties annually is never significantly going to improve teams from Nunavut. The skill gap is simply too vast. There are plenty of logistical challenges for developing curling in Nunavut that I'm not going to get into here. Perhaps they're underway. As I said, I'm semi-retired from it.

But the way you get good is regularly facing high level competition. It's why teams from Europe and Asia come over and play in Canada for six months. Because they get higher levels of competition. They get better by playing better teams on a regular basis.

So how does Nunavut get good? Four players, out of the territory, who travel a lot and play a lot of Ontario and prairie bonspiels. For several years. If you do that, then maybe you get a team that can win a few games and pull off a surprise.

But I can't see that ever happening because I can't even imagine the financial commitment that will take. Your team winning $5,000 at a cashspiel isn't really going to cut it. We're talking, ballpark, $100,000 for four players for a season (and that's probably low). Travel, accommodations, meals, time away from work. And it's not like Nunavut is a cheap place to travel from and live in.

So no, I can't ever see it happening. And I can't see how much benefit Nunavut curlers get from having your ass kicked. And watching adults get whipped isn't exactly inspiring the next generation.

So my suggestions:
1. Nunavut should absolutely send curlers to national events. But they should be the juniors, mixed, seniors and similar championships. That's a good experience and there's less pressure and spotlight at these events than at the Brier and Scotties.

2. If the Brier is interested in my opinion (they're not)....there's a territorial playdown between NWT, Yukon and Nunavut. Winner goes to the Brier. There was a version of this before, but Curling Canada never did enough to support Nunavut teams to go the event, or the other teams were unwilling to go to Nunavut. Help support it financially.

3. Curling suffers a real outreach problem in Indigenous communities. They're trying with their commercials to get more, well, non-white people involved. But a bunch of communities in Nunavut had curling rinks and they were closed due to lack of interest. The ship has probably sailed, but if you're serious about growing the sport, you have to be serious about improving outreach in the North. A Nunavut team of all Inuit players gets more Inuit interested in the sport. Right now it's barely on the radar.

4. At best nobody minded the Scotties and Brier format this year. But nobody loved it. So a Territories team is fine. But as long as we're pruning, get rid of Team Canada. It's always been a terrible idea and they rarely defend the title. Gushue defending this year is an anomaly. Team WildCard actively annoyed me. And, while we're at it, get rid of Northern Ontario. If Nunavut getting a team is annoying to some in Southern Canada, Ontario getting two teams is annoying to most Canadians.

Do that and you're back to an 11-team bonspiel. Delightful.

There you go. I have solved the curling crisis in Canada.

Last Five
1. Behind blue eyes - The Who
2. Arnie's song - Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies
3. Working on the highway (live) - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band*
4. Dance hall days - Wang Chung
5. No jokes-fact - Hot Hot Heat

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