Staying upright in curling not so easy, even for the best
MONTREAL — Claude Julien joined the Montreal Canadiens just in time to reach a major milestone by coaching his 1,000th career NHL game.
The 14-year veteran was set to hit the milestone when the Canadiens hosted to the New York Islanders on Thursday night, only three games after he was brought back for a second stint in Montreal last week after spending 10 years behind the Boston Bruins bench.
“I can’t believe it’s been 1,000 games because it goes so fast,” Julien said before the game. “But you don’t accomplish that without good people surrounding you, whether it’s players, general managers, assistant coaches.
“So much credit goes around to so many people for allowing you to reach 1,000 games. I’m certainly not downplaying it but like I said last year in Boston when I became their winningest coach, it’s great but let’s move on here. I’d like to see another 1,000 games in front of me so I’d better focus on that.”
Julien, who holds Boston’s wins record with 419, is the 27th to reach 1,000 games and the 11th among active coaches.
The 56-year-old started his NHL career with Montreal in 2003. After he was fired in 2006, he spent nearly one full season in New Jersey before joining Boston, where he won a Stanley Cup in 2011 and reached a final two years later.
He was only unemployed for one week after he was replaced in Boston by Bruce Cassidy on Feb. 7. Montreal general manager Marc Bergevin jumped at the chance to bring the Orleans, Ont., native back with the Canadiens in a mid-season funk under fifthyear coach Michel Therrien.
That allowed Julien to coach his 1,000th game with his original NHL club.
The Canadiens lost 3-1 to Winnipeg in Julien’s debut on Saturday but rebounded with a hard-fought 3-2 victory against the Rangers in New York on Tuesday night.
Asked what he considered the highlights of his career, the 56-year-old turned first to his only Stanley Cup win, but there was also a playoff series win by the Canadiens over the Bruins in 2004.
“For sure everyone would say the seventh game of the Stanley Cup final is pretty special,” he said. “When you’re on a team, whether you’re the coach or a player or the equipment manager, you dream of winning the Stanley Cup.
“So that was special, but I also remember well, because I’m here in Montreal, the year we came back against Boston and won the series.”
The Canadiens trailed the first round series 3-1 but came back to win in seven games before being swept in the second round by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning.
Before making it to the NHL Julien won a Memorial Cup in 1997 with the Hull (now Gatineau) Olympiques. But an experience that helped make him grow into one of the league’s best came when he coached Hamilton in the American Hockey League in 2000-01. A weak Hamilton squad went 28-4111 and missed the playoffs.
“I had never been through that before and that was probably my toughest year,” he said. “You don’t realize until afterwards how much you grow through adversity.
“I think that was a real turning point for me because eventually, I’d have to face adversity at the next level and I was definitely able to handle it a lot better. If you’ve never experienced it before, it’s tough to manage.”
ST. CATHARINES, Ont. — From funny to frightening, falling is a fact of life in curling.
Elite curlers are not immune. An informal survey of women at the Canadian championship yields a few stories about feet leaving the ice and elbows, arms and buttocks taking the brunt of a spill.
“I probably have a really good fall at least once a season,” Alberta lead Alison Thiessen said.
A wipeout can happen in a practice, a league game or in front of rolling cameras at national championships recording the pratfall for posterity.
The women move so comfortably on the ice at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in St. Catharines, Ont., it’s easy to forget they have a slider on one shoe that can turn into a banana peel.
Falls aren’t surprising when you consider curlers lunge out of the hack balancing on one foot far ahead of the other.
They lean their body weight into their broom heads to maximize sweeping pressure while stepping over a minefield of guards in front of the rings.
Injury is a possibility but is uncommon at their level of curling, what concerns the women more is if they go down touching the rock in motion with their brooms or bodies.
The stone is then “burned” and immediately removed from play. It’s basically giving a free throw and momentum to the opposition.
A spill in practice might produce nothing worse than giggles, but in an important game, it’s mortifying.
“My first Scotties, we were playing against Shannon Kleibrink and it was my first ever game on TSN,” Ontario lead Lisa Weagle recalled.
“First, I burned one of (skip) Rachel’s rocks sweeping and the next end I fell while sweeping. I didn’t burn that rock, but superembarrassing. We managed to win the game somehow. I’ve never been happier to get off the ice.”
Getting out of the way of a sliding rock is their priority as opposed to protecting themselves when they land on the ice.
“You kind of just move your broom, let the rock go by and tuck and roll,” Ontario second Joanne Courtney said. “Then you try to get back in (to sweeping) but everyone’s laughing too hard.”
Northern Ontario’s front end of Ashley Sippala and Sarah Potts have a pact. If one goes down, the other sweeper has permission to push her teammate out of the way with her broom as hard as it takes.
“One time Ashley fell in front of a rock,” Potts said. “It was funny because it was a scrub game and it didn’t matter. I took my broom and I shoved her out of the way. If I fall in front of the rock, she should shove.”
A wobble sliding out of the hack can turn into a belly flop, but those who keep their heads can still execute their intended shot.
“I think I fell in a league game last season and I made the shot, a double,” Northern Ontario third Kendra Lilly said.
“I slid out of the hack and I don’t know if my foot slipped and I went face down, belly down and just shot the rock down. Everyone stood up and was clapping. I was so embarrassed.”
Brad Gushue’s face plant at The Masters in October, 2015 that resulted in stitches and a swollen eye was a wake-up call that crashes in curling can be more than just embarrassing.
Curling Canada introduced return-to-play concussion protocol mandatory for all their events a year ago.
The organization also recommends protective headgear, as well as wearing grippers on both feet when not delivering a stone, for curlers under 12 until they’ve had two years of training, casual curlers and curlers 65 and over.
Equipment manufacturers now produce curling tuques and hats with protective padding in them, but they’ve yet to be embraced by elite curlers.
Courtney had a large audience for what she considers her most spectacular fall. She was instructing youngsters at a summer camp in Leduc, Alta., and demonstrating how to sweep at the time.
“I don’t even know what happened, but next thing I know my feet are in the air,” Courtney recalled. “I fell on my butt, hit the side of the rock, the rock shoots to the other end of the sheet and stops dead. I’m laying in the middle of the ice in front of probably 120 campers.