Bringing sweeping change with data

Renée Sonnenberg has combined her experience as a curler, coach and math teacher to guide Canadians into the new era of data analytics in curling. As the analytics lead for Curling Canada, she can plot international trends in the sport down to shot percentages by specific athletes in specific situations to help Canada’s teams find the Olympic podium.

She wants to help turn around the storyline that the world has left Canada’s curlers behind.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bringing data to a traditional sport, how’s that going?

I think I have one of the best jobs in curling right now. I’m paving a path that hasn’t really taken hold in our sport yet, so I really enjoy trying to figure out what the best approach is and how to introduce it (to young curlers), so it’s not so new when they’re Team Canada, because there’s only so much you can throw at a team once they put that maple leaf on their back.

What did you do ahead of the Olympics?

I (focused) on two main areas. One is scoreboard, the win probabilities and win percentage. We have 300,000 games in this model, so if I’m not matching the numbers, what am I doing wrong? And if I’m really good in a scenario, then maybe I need to be more aware of the first half of the game to get myself to that scenario. The other is shooting data. There’s one international team that I was scouting for the Olympics and (their lead’s) outturn hit numbers are lower than her in-turn hit numbers. So how can we force her into that shot if we have the choice?

And in Beijing?

My role is to analyze the rocks that the teams will see next. They’re playing on Sheet B tomorrow so I’m going to watch the rocks to see if I notice the team using our colour, switching them up or having trouble with a specific shot with a specific rock.

Is this a lot for teams to take on?

My job is to sift through the buckets and buckets of data to find the one or two gems … At the same time, I don't ever want to throw them off and create more doubt; I want to add clarity.

How are teams reacting to this analytics push?

Some of them are really curious, they want to dive in. Others are like, just tell me the piece of information I need to know, my brain doesn’t work that way. In the past, we leaned way more to what feel and experience has taught us and now we’re dipping our toes into what the numbers are saying.

But other top curling nations are more than dipping, aren’t they?

I don’t think we felt we had to (deal with analytics) before, we had such a lead in our skill and our experience. It sounds so cliché now but the world is catching up. It’s because they’ve been better students of the game.

How did COVID

affect your role? COVID has probably helped me gain some momentum. Curling rinks were shut down and people couldn’t train so I was able to reach out and have all kinds of online meetings, show game tape and analyze stuff, keep them engaged and talk about tactics. It actually helped my role, as ridiculous as that sounds.

What sport other than curling would you enjoy watching in Beijing?

I don’t understand the daredevil sports, moguls or slopestyle, so that’s amazing to me. It’s intriguing to see the hard work that people put in and what they can achieve.