CURLING'S CONUNDRUM
Some players call for change
Some of Canada's best-known curlers say it's time for Curling Canada to make drastic changes to its national championship format — and this year's proposed bubbled season is providing the perfect opportunity.
Many high-level curlers have long been proponents of changing the national championships to include less provincial and territorial representation and more of the teams that put time and money into reaching for the top. With the Tim Hortons Brier (Canadian men's championship) and Scotties Tournament of Hearts (women's championship) scheduled to be played in a bubble in the hub city of Calgary in 2021 — due to the COVID-19 pandemic — some curlers are pushing for an immediate change to the format, which could become a blueprint for events in the future.
“It's a golden opportunity for that,” 2020 Saskatchewan champion Matt Dunstone said.
“I think the Brier and the Scotties are going through a serious identity crisis. We need to change something so we can also have a true national championship. We have too much talent across our country sitting on the sidelines during our national championships.”
Dunstone is a 25-year-old rising star in the sport. His team won the bronze medal at the Brier last March and he's one of the rare success stories when it comes to transitioning from the junior ranks to the men's level of curling.
However, Dunstone is concerned that most young curling teams that have designs on becoming elite are blocked by the provincial representation system that is currently used to make up the Brier and Scotties fields.
This is because some provinces are much stronger than others. For instance, places like Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario often have five or six teams that could fare well at the national championship, but only one or two (if they happen to be a wild card team) can currently qualify. If the same elite teams keep winning those provinces every year, there's very little chance for the development of younger teams.
“I grew up with the goal of winning the Brier,” Dunstone said. “I love the Brier and I love the provincial representation involved in it, but it just doesn't work with today's game. The Brier and Scotties, as they are right now, are not true national championships.
“We need to provide good young teams with the opportunity to show their stuff and a lot of these teams can't do that, based on where they are, geographically.”
Dunstone believes the country needs a two-tiered system, in which the national championship is a separate event from the Brier and Scotties.
The plan would include keeping the Brier and Scotties as “amateur” events, with provincial and territorial representation, and creating new national championships that are similar to the Canada Cup, in which the top men's and women's teams from the Canadian Team Ranking System standings square off.
“In my opinion, it should be the top 15 teams on the CTRS rankings and then the winners of the Brier and Scotties should be the 16th teams in the national championships,” Dunstone said.
“I'm trying to find ways to grow the sport and include everybody. I'm not trying to skew it in a way that's great for my team or Kevin Koe's team. I want it to be great for everyone in every province involved.”
Dunstone is by no means alone in his thinking.
“I completely agree,” said 2020 Alberta men's champion Brendan Bottcher, a 28-year-old who has been the Brier runner-up the last three years.
“Almost every top-end curler will give you the uniform answer that how we select teams for our national championship is not ideal. If the true goal is finding the best champion and developing the young teams coming up, I think there are a lot of gaps in the provincial, territorial model that we have right now.”
This has been a heated topic of conversation for years, but while Curling Canada is clearly working on contingency plans for this season, which could include a temporary format change, permanent alterations to the national championship structure are far less likely.
“The Brier and the Tournament of Hearts and the world championships that we host are the financial drivers for Curling Canada,” said Nolan Thiessen, a former world champion who is now the events co-ordinator for Curling Canada.
“Does that mean that you can't change them? No. But we have to be careful when we change it to make sure we're doing what is necessary to make sure that we're always declaring a great champion and keeping it as a huge financial driver for the entire sport system.”
In recent years, Curling Canada has made significant moves to lessen the restrictions created by the provincial representation format.
Teams are allowed to have one import player in their lineups and now they can also add players with birthright status — if a player was born in a certain province, he or she can represent that province even if they reside elsewhere.
What that has created is Brier and Scotties events that don't have true provincial representation.
Of the 16 teams in the field, one is Team Canada and one is a wild card team, both of which can come from any province.
The other 14 teams are representing provinces and territories but the borders are significantly blurred. For instance, three of the four members of Rachel Homan's Ontario team live in Alberta.
For another example, there were five skips at the 2020
Brier who live in Ontario. Bryan Cochrane's team, which represented P.E.I., was made up entirely of Ontario residents.
What Dunstone and Bottcher believe that does is block the development of younger teams that should have a chance to play for a national championship.
Among the men's teams that didn't play in the Brier last year were Tanner Horgan and Braden Calvert of Manitoba, Scott Mcdonald of Ontario, Tyler Tardi of B.C., and Karsten Sturmay and Jeremy Harty of Alberta. What all those teams have in common is that they were all among the top-16 CTRS teams last season.
“If the Brier and the Scotties are our national championships, why do we have these great, young teams sitting on the sidelines when we have teams that are hardly playing at all going to these events as part of provincial representation?” Dunstone asked.
“If we were to make it more of a ranking system to get into a national championship, it would open up development.”
Curling Canada has not announced how it will make up the fields for the 2021 Brier and Scotties. Many provinces have tentative plans to hold qualifying championships but all have contingencies that will allow them to pick teams if games can't be played because of the pandemic.
“We'll know more by mid-january and by that point we're pretty open to just trying to find a way to ensure that we have a Canadian championship,” Thiessen said.
“A Canadian championship, to me, is Canadians playing for a Canadian title. We want to pull that off as best we can and we'll see how we get there.
“There is the possibility of backfilling (with CTRS teams) if there's curlers from certain provinces that don't want to attend. There will be a wild card team and whether or not there will be more, we'll have to wait and see what happens at the playdown level and, more importantly, see who is willing to show up and be a part of the bubble.”
Northern Ontario has already chosen Brad Jacobs and Krista Mccarville — last year's champions — to go into the bubble, though only Jacobs has accepted the appointment.
Other provinces and territories could send last year's champions, but there's no guarantee every region will be able to find a team that wants to go through quarantine on both ends of the championship as well as regular testing and strict protocols to be a part of the bubble.
“I think this year is the perfect opportunity to make a major change, because there will be lots of member associations that will have a hard time sending teams,” Bottcher said. “When teams will have to quarantine for a couple weeks coming home from the bubble, there might not be a whole bunch of participants who will put their hands up for that.
“This would be the year where you could make a pretty reasonable claim that we're going to do things a little bit differently and see how they shake out.”
As for Curling Canada making permanent changes to the national championship format, does Bottcher believe that will actually happen?
“No,” he said. “Because there's simply too much money in the current system and there's too much risk to move away from it, unfortunately.”
“There's certainly a lot of history there that Curling Canada is reluctant to give up on. But the national championship's primary goal is to pick a team that's best able to represent Canada at the world championships, which qualifies Canada for the Olympics, and ultimately gives experience to many of our top teams to try and become Olympians and represent Canada well at the Olympics.
“I don't think how we're doing it right now is accomplishing any of those goals. I think how we're doing it right now is accomplishing the goal of keeping the overall curling bodies happy, maintaining the history that we have, which goes alongside renewing sponsorship deals and keeping all the corporate partners happy.”
BUBBLE VIOLATORS RISK OLYMPIC PARTICIPATION
Players heading into the Curling Canada bubble in Calgary in 2021 will risk being barred from Olympic qualifying should they choose to violate health and safety protocols.
In a report obtained by CBC'S Devin Heroux, Curling Canada outlined what life will be like for competitors in the Canada Olympic Park bubble, which is where events like the Tim Hortons Brier, Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Men's World Championship and Canadian Mixed Doubles Championship will be played, starting in February.
If any curler or coach leaves the bubble without clearance, for any reason, or invites a non-participant into the bubble, he or she will be suspended from competitive play until July of 2022.
That means they'll be out of the tournament, and all other events, including the Canadian Olympic Trials in December of 2021. That event decides Canada's entry in the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
Additionally, any team with a violation will be immediately removed from the bubble and all members of the team will be sent home at their own expense.
Curlers and coaches will also have to go through significant quarantining on both ends of their appearance in the bubble, along with regular testing and daily temperature and symptom checks.
While the top curlers in the country have applauded Curling Canada's bubble plans and are willing to go along with whatever health and safety measures are necessary, it's not clear if every province and territory will have teams that are willing to go through so much when they have so little chance of winning.
As such, it's expected Curling Canada will at least modify the format of the Brier and Scotties this year, possibly adding wild card teams, based on the Canadian Team Ranking System standings.
Part 2: Why Curling Canada still favours the Brier and Scotties as the best ways to determine national champions.