Curlers ready to push for significant changes
If high-level curlers are able to get their points across to the powers that be in Canada, the Tim Hortons Brier and Scotties Tournament of Hearts could look very different in the future.
Curlers are ready for significant changes to the format of the Canadian men’s and women’s championships and they want to share their ideas with the stakeholders who shape the game.
“It’s time for Curling Canada to grab a number of players and some stakeholders and sit down and have a good, solid discussion about what direction the Brier needs to go, with regard to the format,” three-time champion Brad Gushue said from the 2022 Brier in Lethbridge, Alta., this week. “I really hope they engage the players in the process and not just the same old folks who have been making the decisions on this stuff. Bring in people like myself, Brad Jacobs, Kevin Koe, Kerri Einarson, Tracy Fleury and let’s have a frank discussion about the direction this thing needs to go.”
Curlers don’t all agree on what needs to be done, but many believe there are solutions to be looked at that can help grassroots curling, that can make the Brier and Scotties better, and can help Canada, as a country, have more success on the international stage.
“It’s one event, trying to be everything to everyone and it’s failing,” Manitoba skip Mike Mcewen said. “With one event, it’s this super huge wide net of everything and I think everybody is left with a bad taste in their mouth because of it.”
The problem with the Brier right now is multilayered.
There’s an obvious wide gap between the quality of the elite teams in the event and the provinces and territories with small curling communities. At this year’s Brier, the bottom five teams in the field combined for a record of 4-36.
Nunavut’s Peter Mackey went 0-8 and lost by a combined score of 85-19, dropping an 18-1 decision to Manitoba at one point.
“My viewpoint on it is this is an entertainment product,” Gushue said. “If you’re trying to sell tickets for 5,000 to 10,000 people to come watch and you’re trying to get half a million to a million people watching on TV, you’ve got to have something that’s entertaining and is going to keep people engaged.
“Obviously, some of the games we have would do that, but there’s more than half the games here at the Brier that are not entertaining and most are somewhat painful to watch. We have to really look at that.”
There’s a belief that toplevel curlers aren’t being well served in their pursuit of international success by blowing out half the teams in the Brier field.
As well, there’s a theory that the development of young curlers in Canada is being stunted because they are blocked from getting into events like the Brier and Scotties, when poorer teams are getting in just because they represent a certain province or territory.
Three curlers Postmedia spoke to this week — all who would like to be heard by Curling Canada — offered three different solutions to a very complex problem.
Gushue believes the size of the Brier field needs to be reduced considerably. It is currently at 18 teams, with 14 member associations, one defending champion and three wild card teams that earned their way in through the Canadian Team Ranking System.
“The direction that I would take is less teams,” Gushue said. “I think it should be more like the Olympic trials, with an eight-, nine- or 10team round robin.
“I really want to stress the importance of making sure that places like Newfoundland (and Labrador), Prince Edward Island and other provinces that don’t have a lot of top-calibre competition, still have an avenue to get into the Brier. Maybe we revisit something like relegation and a play-in event leading up to the Brier.
“I was not a fan of that format when it happened before, but I’m certainly more of a fan of it now after seeing these blowouts, because it’s hard to watch. It’s not fun to be out there because you don’t want to show your opponent up, but you also want to make shots and people have paid to come and see that.”