That "Curler" Burtnyk

Traveling home from Calgary today I picked up the National Post, a fine journal which I don’t read that often.
There was a story in the paper about Kerry Burtnyk by Chris Cariou of the Winnipeg Free Press. It was well done and outlined Burtnyk’s preparations as the home-province favourite for the Tim Hortons Brier.
What caught my eye, however, was the headline. It read: “Curler Burtnyk Right On The Money.”
Why, I wondered, did the headline writer (the person who writes the story doesn’t write the headline) feel it necessary to include the word “Curler?”
They didn’t use the word “Footballer” when talking about Bret Favre’s retirement or “Baseballer” when discussing Geku Taguchi’s signing with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Now perhaps I’m reading too much into this and it was a space issue – they needed to fill an extra line – but to me it just smacks of ignorance. It’s as if they person writing the headline believed that no one would know the name Burtnyk and so it was necessary to precede it with the word curler.
I really think the non-curlers at some media outlets underestimate the star power of the biggest names in the game. I think most sport fans would recognize the name Burtnyk. It’s almost insulting to see “Curler Burtnyk” there, but perhaps I should be thankful there was a curling story at all in the Post.