Modern brier attempts to strike tricky balance
REGINA — The Brier father’s Brier.
What was a provincial and territorial men’s curling championship embodying Canadian Confederation for most of its almost 100 years is now a hybrid including multiple teams from one province and widely differing ways for teams to get in it.
Former Canadian and world curling champion Nolan Thiessen, Curling Canada’s new chief executive officer, says both the Brier and the Canadian women’s curling championship, the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, must walk a competitive and marketing tightrope.
“The way I always describe it with the Scotties and the Brier, is that is has to serve a few people and masters,” Thiessen said. “It can’t be a hundred per cent marketing and entertainment. It can’t be a hundred per cent high performance.
“We have to find that middle ground. If it tips too far on either side, then we can have issues.”
Wild-card entries that increased from one to three in 2021 are referred to by their province or territory starting in 2024.
Other than the traditional purple heart crests that provincial and territorial champions earn, there is little in Regina to visually differentiate this year’s Alberta provincial champion Aaron Sluchinski from Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher, whose team was one of two gaining early entry based on their ranking last year.
Including Kevin Koe, there are three teams with “AB” on their backs in Regina. Thiessen says the athletes wanted to do away with the wild-card designation.
Bottcher likes it because curling fans in his province can feel they’re cheering for three teams instead of one.
“In the last handful of years, it was always hard to get behind cheering for team wild card, because who is team wild card at the Brier?” Bottcher said.
Curling Canada had announced is no longer your more changes in April 2023 to how those teams enter the men’s and women’s national championships.
The top three men’s teams in the national rankings at the conclusion of this season gain early entry into the 2025 Brier in Kelowna, along with the 2024 champion.
Rankings are based on points earned from tour events over the course of a season. A high ranking requires an investment of time, travel and money, as well as winning.
Curling Canada’s residency rules require three of four players on a team to live in, or be born in, the province or territory they’re representing to compete in provincial or territorial playdowns.
The defending champion and three “pre-qualified” teams are not subject to those residency rules.
Brad Gushue, who is attempting to win a third straight Brier and sixth of his career, has a lead from Alberta and a second from Ontario.
The Brier’s defending three other teams could champion and ice four players from different parts of the country at future Briers, but they can’t if they miss the pre-qualifying mark and must go the provincial or territorial playdown route.
“The way I look at it right now is you have multiple ways to get into the national championship,” Thiessen said. “You can get in through points, you can get in through playdowns, or you can get in by winning it the year before.
“We’re all Canadians still playing Canadian championship aren’t we?”
The Olympic trials every four years, which doesn’t have a provincial or territorial requirement, determines Canada’s representatives at Winter Games.
The annual Brier and Hearts are not only Curling Canada’s annual marketing showpieces. They determine the country’s reps for world championships, where it’s become harder in recent years for Canada to win gold medals, and where Canadians must also finish high enough in the rankings to qualify the country for Olympic Games.
Rising international competitive for a stakes meant the Brier and Hearts had to let more teams in, Thiessen said. The Brier is now an 18-team tournament.
“We’ve not taking away the provinces’ and territories’ ability to get in. We’re not pulling out residency. We’re not going to say ‘complete freedom,’ or we’re not saying ‘we’re just going to have the trials format.’ That’s not happening,” Thiessen said.
“The provincial and territorial championships matter and they need to matter, but we also need to make sure . . . we have the best teams playing. When you look out here right now, the top seven teams are here. That’s really important.”
If Gushue wants to keep his current team configuration intact and compete in the Brier, he either has to win it again or chase points hard during the season.
Only a handful of other teams at the Brier are willing or able to invest that kind of time and money all winter, and those teams tend to be from Alberta and Manitoba. So is the Brier field fair?
“The simple answer is no. It’s pretty obvious at this stage,” said New Brunswick’s James Grattan, who made his Brier debut in 1997.
Grattan would prefer a tournament like the former Canada Cup decide the country’s international representatives and keep the Brier in its provincial and territorial roots.
“I’m more of a traditionalist than anything else and I appreciated that there were all those provincial colours and everybody earned their way there,” he said. “I always thought there were Canada Cup routes or (Grand) Slam routes for all those big guys, and this championship was special for that reason.”
Thiessen points out Curling Canada’s athletes’ council, which includes Bottcher, and the provincial and territorial associations approved the changes.
“I think the current format, although it’s a bit of a shemozzle of a couple of different things together, I think it accomplishes the goal,” Bottcher said. “It keeps the Brier relevant.”
DEAR DR. ROACH: I recently contracted a rather severe case of bacterial pneumonia, requiring 10 days of amoxicillin. It has left me with a problem – I have an enlarged prostate. Prior to getting pneumonia, I had to go to the bathroom three times a night, which I could handle. Now I have to urinate every hour on average, which is keeping me from getting a good night’s sleep. Why the change, and can anything be done about it?
– E.W. ANSWER: A sudden change in urinary frequency leads me to suspect that something has happened other than just an enlarged prostate. The first thing I would consider would be medication. Amoxicillin doesn’t worsen the prostate, so you should ask your doctor or pharmacist if you were given another medicine at the time you had pneumonia. Antihistamines are common causes.
I would also be concerned that you might have a urine infection. Some bacterial pneumonias can be complicated by bacteria in the blood, which can then go into the urinary system. Amoxicillin, however, is a pretty good antibiotic for the urinary system, so unless the bacteria is highly resistant, this doesn’t seem likely. Still, a urine test would be appropriate.
If you had a urinary catheter (Foley) placed, this can exacerbate prostate problems after it is removed due to trauma and inflammation. A stone can also cause these symptoms.
If none of these are the issue, then it is time to visit a urologist, who can do some flow studies and look at how much urine is in your bladder after you finish urinating. If it’s just the enlarged prostate, medicines like tamsulosin help immediately, while finasteride and similar medications shrink the prostate slowly over a span of months.
Finally, an overactive bladder and prostate enlargement sometimes go together, causing worse symptoms and requiring two different types of treatment.
DEAR DR. ROACH: Every morning, after drinking 1-2 cups of coffee, I spend a few hours having to clear my throat. It’s like having a chest cold. I’ve tried avoiding milk, using powdered creamer and drinking it black. Nothing helps. Any ideas?
– L.M.
ANSWER: You might be getting gastroesophageal reflux, which is when stomach contents go backward from the stomach up into the esophagus. There is a muscular valve, the lower esophageal sphincter, that is supposed to prevent this, but caffeine in coffee weakens the muscle and can allow acid to go backward where it doesn’t belong.
Most people notice heartburn (a burning sensation), while others have a cough. But throat-clearing is not an uncommon symptom for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). The timing of the symptoms (after the coffee) is very suspicious.
Although there are medicines to promote movement of food and acid the correct way, we seldom use them due to their long-term side effects. Avoiding the offending foods (or beverages, in your case) is effective.
At least one study showed that switching to decaffeinated coffee improved symptoms; however, there seem to be substances even in decaf coffee that also promote reflux.
Medicines to reduce acid production by the stomach, like famotidine, are effective at improving symptoms.
It would be a useful diagnostic test to see if the medicine can stop the throat-clearing after you have your coffee.
Readers may email questions to: toyourgoodhealth@med.cornell.edu