Demise of frankenbroom brings end to rink rage
Curling ‘would have been ruined’ if banned tech were still being used
The hard feelings over curling’s Frankenbroom controversy won’t disappear any time soon over a round of drinks in the Brier Patch.
Some friendships are likely gone for good, given the intensity of emotion on both sides of the debate. Some words, once spoken, are impossible to take back.
But at the Grand Slam of Curling Masters there are distinct signs of life returning to normal, thanks to new rules in place mandating the colour and construction of the curling broom.
Banned are the so-called Frankenbrooms and the abrasive scrubbing material that scratched the ice and allowed the curlers to manipulate the rocks at will.
Bad throw? Good throw? Made little difference in a game that was suddenly won and lost by the sweepers, with an assist to an abrupt change in technology.
“Last year was awful,” says four-time world champion Glenn Howard of Ontario, “to watch the sweeping and what happened to our game. There was animosity on the ice between the teams. I hated every minute of it.”
Curling is known as a gentlemen’s game, but the animosity in some instances rivalled that of NHL playoff games between divisional rivals.
Shouting, trash talk, veiled insults — the tension was palpable.
“The integrity of our sport was in the balance,” Howard says. “It was a soap opera. Our game was in jeopardy. It just wasn’t fun. We were making way more shots than we should have.
“It was a sweeping contest — all about scratching the ice and not about power or fitness. That was against everything we built in the sport.”
The controversy boiled over to the point the World Curling Federation hosted a “sweeping summit” in Kemptville, Ont., with help from the National Research Council and some of the biggest names in the game.
After days of testing, the World Curling Federation ruled the abrasive fabric was to become banned technology.
“We’re at a point now where it’s a level playing field and the skill has gone back to thrower,” Howard says. “Last year, you could throw really badly and still make it with sweeping. That’s not how our game was designed. Now you’ve got to throw the rock really well and sweeping will adjust it minutely.
“That’s where we want the game to be.”
Olympic gold-medallist Brad Gushue is out with a hip injury, but he’s looking forward to returning to a less toxic work environment.
“We weren’t the people who started using the brooms,” Gushue says. “We just took it to maximize what the brooms could do. We took a little bit of heat, and there were some other teams who took much more than we did.
“We were using what was provided to us by the manufacturers. It was nothing against the rules.”
Gushue and his team learned, thanks to the Frankenbrooms, that one sweeper could be just as proficient as two — depending on the circumstances. And even though the brooms are going, some teams are sticking with that deployment strategy.
“It’s certainly nice, now, to be on the other side of the animosity, the name-calling and the fingerpointing,” he says. “There were a few teams that took it way too far and lost perspective on what was actually happening and started attacking other guys. That made it uncomfortable for everybody.”
John Morris felt so discombobulated by the whole thing he considered packing up his broom and moving on with his life.
“If we kept doing what we were doing last year, the game would have been ruined,” he says. “I would have not curled anymore. To me, it was like you had a rock and a joystick. It really took away the natural skill of the game. “It was just not right.” Morris, 37, grew up watching his father Earle, a member of the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame. The Frankenbrooms caused him to question whether the game he fell in love with still existed.
After all, how can guys politely shake hands after eight ends if they can’t even look each other in the eye?
“I’ve never seen so many curlers close to fisticuffs,” he says. “It was just a really strange situation in general. You were darned if you did, and you were darned if you didn’t. If you didn’t try out the new brooms, you were at the mercy of being beaten by teams that had different fabric than you.”