Curling needs an outdoor classic

I wrote about this last year at this time but it's worth repeating. Wouldn't it be great if the Great Minds of curling would come up with a format for an outdoor curling match. The success of the outdoor classic in hockey shows that an innovative idea might work for the roaring game as well. Of course back in the day, all curling games were outdoors, right? On the frozen locks in Scotland. Heck, they even used to curl on Lake Ontario at the foot of Yonge Street.
Here's the thought -- put the top two teams in the game together, say Martin and Howard, and put in an outdoor sheet in a stadium somewhere. Not a big stadium but something more manageable where you could sell it out. Or, if you could be assured of cold weather (hello Edmonton), how about on a lake or river?
Then, to add to the fun, make the teams use corn brooms.
Sure, the ice would be crappy, but that's half the fun of it. Do it all for charity and get CBC to slap it on TV during the holiday break.
I think it would fly, how about you?

Update: Here's another idea that just came to me. Why not approach the NHL to run a curling game in conjunction with the next outdoor classic, which is supposed to be held at a Canadian site. You could easily build a sheet of curling ice next door to the main rink and feature the curling game as a sort of pre-hockey event. How about it CCA?

Skins Games and other past events

It’s at this time of year that I think back to the other skins game that used to take place between Christmas and New Year. It was originally known as the GM Goodwrench Skins and was a local, Ontario event. It morphed into a bigger deal and was shown on Sportsnet and had a number of different sponsors over the years, including M&M Meats if memory serves me correctly. There were lots of great teams involved, many of whom had to fly to Toronto on Christmas Day in order to make the show. Paul Savage was the guy behind it.

Eventually, like many other curling events, the sponsorship dried up and it went away.

It got me to thinking about other events that have come and gone. Of course there have been many. My favourite was the old Royals Classic, which started off as a carspiel then turned into a cashspiel with some significant dough. This was one of the most effective spiels I’ve ever seen that combined serious curling with serious partying.

What other events that no longer exist do you miss?

Olympics fuel local growth

Here's my Globe column today on how curling associations are preparing for a surge in interest in playing the sport thanks to the Olympics.

I've often taken curling associations to task for their lack of preparedness to capture those who get interested in the sport thanks to it being seen on television. But this time, I think the CCA and USCA are ahead of the game. Now, of course, it's up to those at the club level to utilize the programs put in place and try to get people from in front of their televisions onto the ice.

Anyone have any examples of clubs that are taking advantage of the high profile the Olympics will give and using it to recruit?

Your help for the decade in curling

I usually do a Globe column on the best of the year but this time I’m looking back on the entire decade. So I’m welcoming your help in deciding some of the following:

* Team of the decade

* Game of the decade

* Shot of the decade

* Quote of the decade

* Story of the decade

Leave me your thoughts and you might seem them in my next column.

Globe column on John Benton

Here's my latest Globe column on American lead John Benton. What a great story and although I only interviewed him over the phone, he seems like a wonderful guy, someone you just can't help but cheer for.

Trials' wrap

I made it home to balmy Toronto (temp +2) today, wrapping up a good week in Edmonton. Some thoughts:

* Overall, the Trials was a great success. I think Jackie-Rae Greening (who is really one of the nicest people you'll ever meet) and her gang did a first-class job of hosting the biggest and easily the best Trials to date. And I've been to them all. Edmonton really is the centre of the curling universe.

* Talking to a number of players over the final weekend, it's clear that Kevin Martin and his team aren't going to win any popularity contests among their peers. Almost to a man, the players I talked to said the new Olympic squad isn't really a team in the true sense -- they are more a business. "I've never seen the four of them do anything together other than curl," said one Western Canadian curler. "I don't know if they really like each other." The betting is that if the team starts losing (which, admittedly is a long shot considering the way they played) at the Olympics, there will be lots of finger-pointing. That said, I have no problems with Kevin and the rest. They've been good to me from a professional standpoint and on the ice, they're mighty impressive.

* TSN pulled in its largest television audience for a curling event ever -- 1.2 million -- for the men's final. The 875k for the women's game was great too. Of course the men's game had the perfect ingredients. Two high-profile teams, one from audience-rich Southwestern Ontario and lots on the line. I don't think they'll surpass this for the gold medal game in Vancouver.

* Possibly the only people in Ontario happy that Glenn Howard lost are the organizers of the sponsorless Ontario men's final. Howard would have passed on the provincials if he'd won the Olympic berth. And the next highest-profile curler in the provincal, Wayne Middaugh, isn't entering so it would have been wide open.

* The CCA seems much better prepared to support its Olympic teams this time around. The winners got $50,000 to help out with travel and accommodation and tickets for family members. At the last Games, Russ Howard told me it cost him $24,000 to bring his family along for the trip to Italy. And there's a designated person -- the Great Jock Tyre -- to look after the needs and wants of the family members.

One final done, one to play

One down and one to go. Yesterday, Cheryl Bernard finished off what’s been a great week for her Calgary squad by winning the Olympic berth with a victory over Shannon Kleibrink.

For the first five ends of that game, it looked like no one wanted to win. It was among the sloppiest big contests I’ve ever seen. I’m sure somewhere, Bingyu Wang and Anette Norberg were smiling watching the two teams make mistake after mistake.
But the second half was much better, or at least a lot more exciting. Right down to last shot, just like it should be.

To me, the difference seemed to be just how mentally prepared the Bernard team was. I mean, they were laughing and smiling throughout the match, no matter what the situation. They really seemed to be handling the situation with calm. Kleibrink looked tense to me, so did Amy Nixon, but she’s almost always wound up.

Interesting to note that after the game, you could see just how PO’ed Nixon was at the loss while Kleibrink, in the media scrum seemed to be “Oh well, we tried our best.”
I’d prefer an attitude like Nixon’s personally.

From a purely selfish point of view, Bernard is a better winner. She gives better quotes than Kleibrink, who is nice but usually a bit stilted in the scrums.

**

On the men’s side, I don’t think you could draw it up any better. The top two teams in the world going for the biggest prize. What’s the difference here? Probably just a shot somewhere along the line, either one made or one missed.

I think you had to be impressed with the Howard team’s performance in the semi against Jeff Stoughton. They were very, very good. For that reason I’m going to give them the edge today even though the record favours Martin.