Please note, while I will state what I think was every team’s BEST individual jacket/colourway, the teams are being ranked on their jacket set as a whole, including all colours and all jackets/shirts. Let’s dive in.

14. Great Britain (Designer: Adidas; Best Colour: Navy)

From what I understand, Great Britain is not exactly a Winter Olympics powerhouse. They picked up a few medals in skeleton, but they mostly rely on curling to bring in a medal haul every quadrennial. And uhh…they know Team Mouat is the #1 team in the world right? Considering Adidas is one of the world’s top sports apparel brands, I have no clue how they failed to meet the moment and get their #1-ranked team in something better than this tossed-off disaster. I know GB’s whole thing is simple patterns—the English soccer team is a great example—but these feel extremely low-effort. And don’t even get me started on the vertical “GREAT BRITAIN” below the Adidas logo. If you’re going for “plain and classy”, you can’t also throw that in there. But the front isn’t even the main problem: I mostly chose this photo because it’s the back of the shirts that really got me. What’s with the giant space between the player’s name and the simple “GBR” below it? It’s like they made space for a logo and then never put it in and makes the “GBR” look like its floating, out of place. Considering how nice the off-ice kit was (seriously, get me one of these baby blue jumpers or baby pink fleece, stat), this was a real tough look.

13. Norway (Designer: Craft; Best Colour: ???)

I know when I think of Norway, I think of the colours of cream and grey. I mean, what were these? The design on the front made no sense to the overall theme, I don’t like the dual colours on the shoulder yoke, and the tiny Norwegian flag on the reverse made me feel like they added that at the last minute because they thought, “shoot, we should probably remind people these curlers are playing for Norway because these colours won’t do that”. These were easily the worst shirts and jackets of the Games by a LOT, and it’s really unfortunate because of how great their ski suits looked and the fact that their off-ice kit was done by Dale of Norway and had some truly incredible Nordic sweater pieces. If they’re the worst, how are they second-last, you ask? They move up one spot ahead of GB because Team Ramsfjell paid tribute to the passing of Thomas Ulsrud by bringing the pants back for a single game. People argued they should’ve worn them more, but I thought it was perfect.

12. Japan (Designer: Mizuno; Best Colour: White)

How it is that the kit the Japanese women wore at the Olympic Qualifying Event was MILES better than what they wore here? I can’t understand it. These were boring with a capital B, from the all-white and all-black jackets with no details whatsoever to the shirts that used a weirdly blurred font for the word “JAPAN” on the back. The whites get a slight tick up because I liked the shoulder yoke a decent amount. I initially thought on first glance that it was sakura (cherry blossoms) on the yoke, and I was prepared to move these up a couple notches. Then I saw it was digital camo. No thank you. I like the colour of it, it combines nicely with the white, but that’s about the only redeeming quality of this set.

11. China (Designer: Keep Moving; Best Colour: White)

I liked the gradient on China’s Olympic jackets. Last Olympics. The fact that both the Chinese men’s and women’s teams have made real strides in the world game recently, winning World Bronzes and Pan-Continental Championships, made me hopeful that they would come up with a really nice kit here to reflect their status as an emerging player on the curling scene. Unfortunately, it’s almost an exact repeat of the kit they used 4 years ago, and the gradient has grown stale since. The white/black combo is nice, but I don’t love that the gradient goes all the way to the sleeve on the shirts, and some of the details I really liked from the jackets four years ago, like the gold patterning on the sleeves, is all gone here. These are fine but nothing more.

10. Korea (Designer: Black Yak; Best Colour: White)

Another case where a team has worn better jackets on the world stage quite recently and who had a very nice kit back in 2022, but missed the mark here. They got a premium sponsor in one of South Korea’s leading outerwear manufacturers, Black Yak, and unfortunately, Black Yak didn’t do all that much with it. I really like the bold font on the back for the name and I like the Korean flag and detail on the sleeve, but I have to admit this sorta wispy pattern all over the jacket isn’t really doing it for me. It looks even worse on the navy jacket than it does the white, and it doesn’t look good here either. I like the nod to the Korean flag with the trigrams just down the left of the back of the jersey but ultimately this falls pretty short and doesn’t feel like any sort of iconic Olympic strip.

9. Sweden (Designer: Uniqlo; Best Colour: Yellow)

Speaking of identical kits to last Olympics, here we have the Swedes. Look, I do really like the Tre Kronor, and I love the yellow. It’s instantly identifiable, no other nation uses yellow so prominently in their colourway, and the jackets are in lockstep with Sweden’s hockey and soccer teams, which not every curling nation attempts. That said, I do think there’s a bit of a tendency to lean on the Tre Kronor’s iconic status and not shoot for much more outside of that. Uniqlo has come up with some truly unique designs for the off-ice kit and they’re a big player in world fashion. So I’d kinda love if they’d try something crazy, even if it’s just for a third kit, rather than taking the easy way out. These are even simpler than last time, where they had a Swedish flag loop on the cuff of the sleeves which I quite liked. These are efficient, they immediately scream “SWEDEN”, and they are not bad. But I like to live on the wild side.

8. USA (Designer: Columbia; Best Colour: White)

This is the second Olympics for Columbia as the designer of the US jackets and I gave them a bit of a pass last time for veering too much into AMERICA mode because they got the contract about a year before the last Olympics. Well, this time they had 4 years to learn from their mistakes, and largely did not. I said earlier I like to live on the wild side, but there’s a such thing as too wild. The white jackets were pretty nice because the gradient and colour blend sorta masked how busy they were, and I didn’t mind the star pattern on the shoulder yokes or the ones at the bottom of the long sleeves in this colour. The red zipper was a nice touch. The white could be a top 5-ish jacket in the tournament, but the red/blue colourway was one of the worst jackets in the entire tournament, and dragged the whole thing down. Neither the red nor the sorta “steel blue” were great colours and they were just so damn busy, with a rock face that was so washed out you couldn’t really tell what it was, an eagle soaring, and the fact you really realize just how many stars are on this friggin’ thing when they’re contrasted against a darker colour. So. Many. Stars. And I really didn’t care for the “USA” logo on the back where each letter was a different font.

7. Estonia (Designer: Trimtex; Best Colour: Blue)

This is strictly what we would call a “Pantone selection”, as that shade of blue looks SO sharp on the curling ice, it instantly stands out. These are definitely on the simpler side and reminiscent of a really nice but basic soccer jersey, but the shade of blue makes them look so clean, and I love the small details, like the one sleeve bleeding into the colours of the Estonian flag, and the two rings of squares on the other sleeve, one of which was the Estonian flag colours repeated, and the other the 5 colours of the Olympic rings. Classy touch. I also really liked the back, as there wasn’t an ounce of real estate wasted, they used a really clean font, and featured the Estonian Olympic logo (and the rings) proudly, which is fitting for their first time being featured in the curling events at the Games.

6. Czechia (Designer: Alpine Pro; Best Colour: Navy Blue)

The Czechs are always going to have a benefit with their jerseys, and that benefit is that they have one of the coolest country logos of anyone. It helps their hockey jerseys, and it helps their curling jerseys too, as the Czech lion looks badass as hell in the middle of a curling jersey. This is also how you do geometric without going too basic, and how you elevate a jacket from simplistic without overcomplicating it. The consistent pattern that continues around the sides to form a mirror on front and back, the solid side-body stripe, and the contrast of this navy to this bright-ish red really suits. Tough to have complaints here.

5. Italy (Designer: Fila; Best Colour: White)

THIS is how you do simple. Look, some countries DO just benefit from having an iconic soccer jersey to pull inspiration from, and these are just absolutely clean as hell. Curling has had a longstanding problem trying to sell on-ice jerseys because they’re often a bit too busy, a bit too NASCAR-looking, or just a bit too ugly to wear outside of a curling rink. These? These you could sell. If they were just plain white they wouldn’t go at all, but the Italian flag racing stripe down the back absolutely pops (and is a nice nod to the country’s carmaking history), as does the subtle blue collar. And the font? Bellissima. If I were Fila, I’d probably try to capitalize on Stefania Constantini’s newfound visibility as a sports icon within the country (she gained 200,000 followers on Instagram over the course of the Games) and get these on shelves immediately.

4. Denmark (Designer: Foxglide; Best Colour: Red)

I’m not sure why more curling jerseys don’t use texture to their advantage, but the Danes always have great jerseys, and Foxglide always delivers on the biggest stage. It’s very subtle, but the “wavy leaf/flame/whatever” pattern really works, making these jackets stand out in a field of solids. Add in the Olympic Torch-inspired logo, the full-colour Olympic rings on the back (!), the white gradient side-stripe and the Danish flag integrated on the one shoulder, and these are really working. I also really love that they included the Milano Cortina logo on the right chest, a nod to soccer jerseys that often have tournament identifiers. I couldn’t fully get there with the “DEN” on the one shoulder, especially when on the jacket it was pushed to halfway down the sleeve and looked a bit awkward, but overall these are just a perfect example of how to be a little bit busy but not distracting. I would’ve loved to see a return of the black jackets from 2022, though.

3. Switzerland (Designer: Craft; Best Colour: White)

I wanted to put these in second, I really did. I LOVE that they were designed by Mr. T himself, Benoît Schwarz-van Berkel. I love so many of the details on them. These had just about everything you’d want: the Swiss Alps incorporated tastefully, the national flower of edelweiss ringing the shoulder yoke and sleeves, and the back is just perfectly done with a classy font and a giant Swiss flag that really stood out, especially on TV. I wasn’t in love with the “SUI” wordmark on the front and I thought it really washed out on the red jacket, which wasn’t nearly as nice in general. The white jacket is definitely a top-3 piece overall, but the red jacket was sorta mid-pack and that’s why I had to leave the Swiss just behind my number 2, who had consistency across all three of their colours.

2. Canada (Designer: Goldline; Best Colour: White)

White jackets really had their moment at this Olympics, but I can’t help it if the designs tended to dazzle best on a white canvas. That said, I liked all three Canada colours (I also love that they even had three in a field where most had two) and that’s why they just barely edge out the Swiss here (I would put the Swiss white ahead of any Canada jacket, but the red doesn’t match up). There was lots to love about these Canada jackets, from the gorgeous Indigenous maple leaf design on the back and the accompanying hummingbird design on the sleeves, to the contrasting colour on the inner collar (you can see it just a bit in this photo on Brett but it really looks nice in person). The Canada Olympic Committee just also has such a clean, soccer-inspired logo that it looks great on the left chest. Keeping it out of the top spot? I haven’t been enamoured with this “CANADA” font across the chest, something we’ve seen on several Canada jackets this quad. The jacket has (by my count) 5 maple leaves on it, and says “Canada” on the back. It feels a little like overkill to me and takes away some of the cleanliness. On some level, when you’re the country where curling means the most, you have to step it up, and Goldline did here.

1. Germany (Designer: Dynasty; Best Colour: Black)

Oh baby. Oh babyyyyyy. You can give me these any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Absolutely as good as it gets. This was Dynasty’s only entry in the field and they knocked it out of the park, as I have the Germany blacks in at #1 in the field and the Germany whites in at #2, so it’s just annihilation across the board. The font is crisp, the German Eagle logo looks so bold and crisp on a curling jacket, and using the nation’s flag colours to create this sorta fire-and-brimstone look emanating from the bottom of the jacket was absolutely top-class. Throw in the German soccer-inspired Eagle shield on the front, no parts that don’t contribute to the whole, and we are going all the way in. That link also gives you a sense of how good the whites looked, with a pink-and-peach combo for the flames/mountains/whatever that really was a unique and fantastic colour choice for curling and made Germany stand out in their first appearance in the Games since 2014.

So there you have it. Overall? I think across the board we did better than 2022. There weren’t too many kits that were outright bad, and some of the new players in the field (Estonia, Germany) acquitted themselves very well. I’ll see you again in 4 years for the most important article in curling. Thanks for reading, and feel free to share the uniforms you liked best in the comments.

This is an Olympic year and we know that means there will not only be a lot of amazing curling to consume, but also team changes, and so this newsletter will likely get a workout throughout the year as I put my “xoxo, gossipcurl” hat on once again. So don’t fear! I love and appreciate all of you and there will be more newsletters coming. But before we get to that, you may have heard: I released a book! “Curling Rocks!: Chronicles of the Roaring Game” came out a couple of weeks ago in Canada on Douglas & McIntyre, and the response has been fantastic. We sold out of copies at The Rock Shop in Nisku, many of you across the country have shared that you picked it up, and even top curlers are getting in on the act:

Thank you to everyone who has bought it so far, and for those of you who haven’t, it’s available anywhere you get books in Canada, from Indigo to your nearest independent bookstore. And if they don’t have it, they can order it for you. The Rock Shop will also have copies available in Saskatoon and Steinbach, and I’ll be able to sign a copy for you too. ;)

For my U.S. friends who have been asking, the book will be out there just in time for the Olympics, on February 3rd, 2026. You can pre-order it now at any bookstore, or from my friends over at Broomfitters, who sell a bunch of curling products and are great ambassadors for the game.

Some of you have been asking about an audiobook, and I have good news on that front: it is coming! No release date yet, but I’ve been told sometime in the spring. I am hoping to be able to read the book myself, but I am still waiting have that confirmed. More on all of that shortly

I think that’s everything! Oh, and we’ve switched to weekly episodes over at the Broom Brothers, and it’s been a lot of fun. Tons of great player interviews, lots of good chatter with my co-host Robbie Doherty, I think we are getting better all the time and I hope you’ll check out the podcast if you haven’t already.

Thanks as always for being a subscriber, it means a lot to me, and I’ll see you very soon, maybe with some juicy goss. xoxo.

Curling Rocks!: Chronicles of the Roaring game will be out October 14, and is available for pre-order now, and I am so excited for you to be able to read it. It’s a funny and touching look at the game that combines stories from my own failed career with a bunch of chapters about the pro game, from curling’s worst fashion ideas to what it might look like if you had to build a Frankencurler using parts from curlers. It’s meant to appeal to both the diehard fan and the casual fan alike, and I really hope you like it.

Funny enough, I had actually pitched this book a few years ago with the help of my friend, comedian and author Charlie Demers. We got very close but ultimately didn’t get it landed, but with the success of Broomgate, Charlie urged me to pitch again and we found a great home with Douglas & McIntyre. I’m very excited to be working with them, and the book also features some amazing illustrations from my friend and great cartoonist Alyssa Hirose.

There will be some plans coming for book launches, writers’ fests, and more, so stay tuned for those in the near future. I look forward to meeting a bunch of you over the next year or so.

And finally, some have already asked and I do believe e-books and audio books are in the works and in the plans. Much more to come, but in the meantime, pre-orders are available now and they mean a lot to the overall sales of the book, as bookstores use them to gauge how many copies they should order, etc. So if you’re at all interested, I’d love for you to get a pre-order in now, using the following links:

This one will direct you to your nearest independent bookstore: https://www.indiebookstores.ca/book/9781771624558/

And this is the link if you’d like to buy it from Chapters/Indigo: https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/curling-rocks-chronicles-of-the-roaring-game/9781771624558.html

Thank you so much, and I hope you’re enjoying your summer. More writing to come in the fall, I hope. Until then…

Why not start with one of the most surprising news items we’ve seen in the last 3 months, the Gushue switch. It was perhaps not that surprising if you were watching the games, as there definitely seemed to be a disconnect between EJ and Brad at times. While curling is much more of a business now than it used to be, there is still an element of levity and(or) friendship that a lot of the top teams carry into their games, and that seemed to not be there anymore, and probably why the change was made.

As far as the team being tired, I don’t think that’s it, although that week in St. John’s would probably tire anyone in Team Gushue’s shoes (Gu Shoes?) out. I’ve never seen anything like it. They were getting pulled in so many directions and Brad does get hounded there like a Hollywood celebrity. It was wild to witness.

I think it’s two factors: one, it’s a big change. We know that Brad is very particular, and has been open over the years about needing his teams to do things just so, from delivery to sweeping to communication. Moving on from one of the best seconds in the world from both a sweeping and shooting perspective is a big shift no matter who replaces them. For Brendan to be playing a foreign position and not controlling the reins of the team for the first time in almost 20 years is a big adjustment for him, too. Two, the sweeping gap is big. I don’t think Brendan is as bad at sweeping as some keyboard warriors online might suggest, but any top curlers will tell you EJ is on the very short list of top sweepers in the game, and has been for years. Brendan is, uhh…not. It’s a big adjustment in where to put the broom and how to throw the stone when the sweeping just isn’t as powerful as you’re used to. It’s 4 smart guys and I expect they’ll figure it out, but I think the adjustment is larger than people think.

Speaking of sweeping…not that I’ve heard of. I know there is research being done behind the scenes and I think the new foam BalancePlus has come out with may speed along some of this research. I don’t think we’re at Broomgate 2.0 but I’ll be curious to see where that heads in the next few months. I know Eugene is an avid reader of this newsletter so maybe he’ll give me an update I can pass along next time.

Ah yes, this old bugaboo. The short answer is yes, sort of, (how’s that for committal) and I’d actually argue we are at least part of the way there already. I think most people in curling media have gotten at least a few angry texts or DMs at this point, myself included.

I think what people need to understand about sports media in general is that often what we think of as “leaks” are actually controlled, and insiders in other sports also hold lots of information back out of respect to players/executives/team employees or whoever their sources are. Often the leaks are to serve a greater narrative: maybe an owner wants to see how the public might react to a trade rumour. Maybe an agent is trying to get their client more money. Maybe there’s a key narrative an invested person wants out there to beat the other person to their version of that same narrative.

The reality for curling is that there isn’t enough money or stakeholders for this sort of insider information trading to be viable, or to make sense. Often the only sources are the curlers themselves. If there were owners of teams, or GMs of teams, or other stakeholders around that might be able to leak info, then you might see more info leak. But for a curler on a team, it doesn’t actually add anything for them to the overall experience to say, let it leak that they’re cutting a player to a member of the media before they just release the news themselves.

As far as getting something beyond rehashing team press releases for team cuts or other sensitive information, I do think that yes, curling does have some growing up to do in that regard, but again, a lot of times that information is coming from higher up in other sports. Let’s say for example in the NHL that Team A trades Player A, and the fans of Team A loved Player A, so they’re unhappy with the move. Team A might then leak what actually happened behind the scenes, and it might be information about how Player A was actually a bad actor so as to buffer their own image. It allows reporters to print a better story, and it gives the teams some currency in return.

Right now, there is no currency a media member can offer a curling team because it’s just the team that can act as sources. The only time you might get something like that is if a curler is cut from a curling team and wants to go scorched earth, maybe something akin to the Moulding/Bottcher situation. The reality for most curlers, however, is that the top players are recycled between teams all the time, and scorching the earth may limit your opportunities in the future, so they don’t.

Love stepping away from the pros for a second. The answer isn’t straightforward, unfortunately. It’s a little bit complicated with the 5-rock rule because your second will still be expected to draw, but generally newer players pick up hitting faster, and are better at it, so it makes a little more sense to have them at 2 because generally, they will be hitting more. I will say though, you need a strong third to execute on this because you will have ends where you are in trouble and need the bailout with the weaker player in the 2-hole. Lead is often the default option because while you may not get the ends set up exactly right (or ever), you have more time to still build a successful end if they screw up. If your second misses both of their shots consistently and your third isn’t dynamite, you may have an issue. I think if you knew they would consistently make one of their two shots but consistently outright miss one of the two, you’d put them at lead. One good guard or come-around per end at the club level is often enough. Knowing you’re missing a shot at second every end, however, is tough. But if their ability is such that some ends you can count on them to make both and maybe you’ll have the odd end where they throw two zeroes, then you may be able to hide them better at second.

Calling Team Homan the prohibitive favourite is probably underselling it, especially if Shannon Birchard’s injury situation continues to complicate and Briane Harris’ appeal is unsuccessful. They’ve managed to have success this year but new spares every weekend isn’t a recipe for overall success and if Shannon ends up missing more time (she played in Swift Current this weekend but missed the team’s last game against Kaitlyn Lawes so we’ll wait to hear more), it could be a problem getting up to speed for the Trials which are all of a sudden less than a year away. And the gap between Einarson and that next group of teams is vast, something serious would have to happen for a real challenger to Homan to emerge from there.

For the men, it’s tough to argue that Gushue isn’t still the prohibitive favourite. He’s won all the Briers in this quad, he’s still the leading Canadian team in the world rankings, he’s the incumbent Trials champion, and he’s Brad Gushue. However, that word prohibitive is doing a lot more work now than it might have been a few months ago, as we’ve already discussed some of the challenges with EJ leaving. Brad Jacobs is now only 5 points behind Gushue in the world rankings and climbing, I think the EJ add freshens up Team Dunstone, and Mike McEwen continues to truck along, qualifying in every event they’ve played since September except one, and winning 3 times in the process.

Speaking of Team Jacobs…I hadn’t actually noticed Marc changed his release, so I asked the man himself if he had changed it. Here’s what Marc said:

“I did! Great question, guy is sharp! I actually changed my in-turn grip and release. I had too many overcurls, and I needed to make a big change. It’s been a great move for me so far.”

So there you have it. Good eye.

Oh, it’s a problem. It might be the biggest problem facing Canada right now, in fact. At least on the men’s side. We’ve relied far too much on this current generation of players now aged 35-49. I don’t blame Curling Canada for this, because this has been one of the best generations of curlers in a long time, and left to their own devices and to make their own teams, were pretty successful. The one downside to this is they really haven’t brought along any young players. Kevin Martin brought along Morris/Kennedy/Hebert. Glenn Howard brought along Laing/Savill, and then Scott/Mathers/March after that. Jeff Stoughton brought along Fowler/Carruthers. The list goes on. This generation has been largely allergic to that, and it’s hurt the country big-time. Young players have been left to stay with their own teams and get their asses kicked before eventually quitting, with very few exceptions, and almost all of those exceptions were exemplary young skips (Bottcher/Dunstone/Tardi).

The reason the Euro teams are able to do this is because they’re identifying players at a young age and giving them resources. Scotland should be scaring the shit out of Canada right now. Bruce Mouat is the best team in the world with a bullet and he’s 30. Ross Whyte is 7th in the world, beat Bruce at last year’s Scottish championship, has made a Slam final, and is 26. James Craik won the World Juniors, the World Universities, and is now 20th in the world and he’s 23. They’re keeping junior teammates together, and giving them top level training from a young age (and funding), so the waves keep coming. Hell, Kyle Waddell and Cameron Bryce aren’t even heavily funded (if at all) and they’re 19th and 30th, respectively. Canada has not been doing this. We’ve been focused on the top end of the game and just assuming the juniors will follow behind because of our depth, and because that always worked before. It’s about to stop working, and very quickly.

There’s no doubt in my mind Dave Murdoch has noticed this (and also helped build this current Scottish model), so I expect to see a lot more investment in the younger curlers in the game coming up. But we might have a fallow period of 5 years or so while we wait for those curlers to catch up and the Koes and Gushues and McEwens of the world retire. All it takes is one good team to be competitive on the world stage (look at Sweden), but we may see a time very soon where a country’s third-best team is better than our third-best team, and that has probably never been the case in the sport’s competitive history.

Last question! If you’re a fan of American curling, particularly the 5U division, check out Ben’s newsletter Stones and Stripes. It’s been awesome to see the growth of curling in the USA in the last half-decade, and Ben does a great job covering it (as well as other USA Curling stuff).

Jordon McDonald hasn’t come out of nowhere, per se. He gave Brad Jacobs (then playing with Reid Carruthers) all he could handle a couple of times in last year’s Manitoba Provincials, beat the field at the U25 NextGen Classic despite being one of the youngest teams in the tournament, and then had that miracle PointsBet run. They’ve also qualified in every event they’ve played in this season, their first playing the men’s circuit full-time. So they’re not super foreign to us in Canada, but maybe abroad they might be.

They remind me a lot of Mike McEwen’s early team, actually, with the Neufelds and Matt Wozniak. Jordon has a very similar slide to Mike, and also calls the game with a similar confidence, not afraid to have rocks in play because he trusts his ability to make the final shot. They’re also clearly friends, have a good bond with each other, and I think Mike’s team was a little surprising at first as they worked their way into the upper echelon of the game, but team chemistry was a big piece for them too.

Harkening back to the last question, Jordon McDonald is the exact type of team Curling Canada should be funding, and will be, based on their NextGen Classic result. They’re a team you’d like to see grow together, and I’m very excited to see how they do at their first Slam in a few weeks.

Thanks everyone for reading! Felt great to be back in the saddle pumping out content for you, and hopefully we’ll do some more in the new year. In the meantime, listen to Broom Brothers. I think the shows have been really funny, fun, and fascinating (the 3 F’s!) and I’m really proud of the work we’ve been doing. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it too! Until next time.

It was very fitting that Facebook Memories reminded me of this just a few days ago:

It’s been over 12 years since I have been trying to create curling content, starting out with my webseries Cullen and a Curler in the Royal City Curling Club men’s locker room chatting to Ben Hebert with my then-second Jay Wakefield’s arms trembling as he struggled to keep my iPhone 5 aloft. I was using a microphone I bought from a Future Shop (remember those) that just plugged into the phone’s AUX port (remember those) and it worked for precisely two interviews: Ben’s and the one with Kalynn Park that followed.

I did a “Between Two Ferns” take-off with Mike McEwen in Brooks that no one understood and everyone thought Mike and I actually hated each other. I drove to Abbotsford, BC after a day of teaching to hit a 30-minute window that Niklas Edin had between practice and a team meeting with then-coach Peja Lindholm to do one. CurlingZone was always on-board from the beginning and Gerry helped me out a lot, posting the videos on the CZ YouTube page and helping me in any way he could.

From there to Stone & Straw to commentating for Curling Live to Way Inside to Broomgate, it’s been a wild ride and I couldn’t be more excited for the next chapter. I have always felt like curling was not just an amazing sport, but had an amazing set of personalities that deserved to be showcased. I knew that if people just got to know curlers, they would love them, and if people love athletes in a sport, they tend to start loving the sport.

So it’s really exciting that The Curling Group has made it an early mission to make the Grand Slams player-forward, and to push the game itself forward in a way that it deserves. As you may have seen on socials this week, there’s a host of things around the corner, and I wanted to tell you about how I’m going to be involved and how excited I am for where the sport is heading.

First of all, I’m going to be at all the Grand Slam events doing commentary with Brent Laing, Tyler George, and a host of your favourite curlers. There’s going to be a bit of an open-door policy and we have some new and unique commentating formats that I think are going to add a lot to the sport. We haven’t fully announced that yet, but things will look a little different on select draws and the coverage will be presented in a way curling never has before. I had no choice but to laugh at this snippet from The Curling News:

Being sandwiched between a multi-time World Champ and an Olympic Gold medalist with credits like “podcaster” and “two-time BC Men’s finalist” is a privilege and I’ll do my best to help everyone else in the booth shine. There’s been a lot of questions online, but here is what you need to know about the streaming:

1. Every game on every draw will be streamed. There won’t be commentary or player audio for every game, but at the very least, you’ll be able to see it. There will remain no TV coverage on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. That means that the Tuesday and Wednesday draws will have ONE feature game that will look like a TV broadcast, with commentary/player audio, and then the other 3 games will be presented on video.

2. But perhaps even cooler, once the TV coverage starts on Thursday, if you have cable or a Sportsnet package, you’ll be able to choose between TWO feature games: the one that’s on TV, and the one we are commentating on stream. It’s something fans have wanted for a long time, and it’s going to be a pleasure to bring it to you. If it were me, I’d probably watch both. And maybe have the other 2 games without the audio streaming too. Monitor sales are set to rise across Canada. Productivity will be at an all-time low.

3. It was a little disheartening this week that when curling fans were brought the news that every game at the Charlottetown Slam was being streamed for free, with games featuring player audio and high-level commentary, that the first thing they thought to do was gripe that maybe it wouldn’t eventually be free. What? First of all, all the information you have right now is that it is free. Who suggested it wouldn’t be? Seeing listed prices on other Home Team streaming products and assuming that’s the exact number that the Slams are going to eventually charge (if they charge at all) is so wild to me. And even if they do eventually charge, this one is free. And it’s every. freaking. game. Free. Guess how many Slams you’ve had in the last 15 years that had every game streaming, and all for free? That’s right. The answer is zero. So even if it’s only one—and again, you (and I) have absolutely no evidence to the contrary—that’s better than zero. The Curling Group bought the Slams less than six months ago, and they are delivering on one of the first promises they made when they took over—not easy to do. So sit back and enjoy, and maybe learn to not have your immediate reaction to be making a bunch of assumptions and then acting entitled about them. Rant over. See you on the streams this week.

I’ve also launched a brand-new curling podcast with my friend Robbie Doherty called The Broom Brothers. Doing a regular curling podcast every few weeks that recaps all the news and drama from the world of curling with unique and personality-driven player interviews is something I’ve always wanted to do. Robbie and I had actually discussed doing a show together a couple of years ago and then he got really busy with life stuff (way to have a kid, dude) and it didn’t work out. He’s always been my dream partner for something like this and we are really happy with the first episode, which is out now.

You can listen to it HERE, and we recap the wild news of the offseason, the early season successes of a few teams, and we predict where the season is headed. Then, we invite Benoît Schwarz-van Berkel onto the show for a great interview where we discuss his team’s hot start, his love of watches, baking bread, and his Olympic household (his wife is also an Olympian in swimming). We’ve already vaulted up to #4 on the Canadian sports podcast charts, and early feedback has been great, so be sure to listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

And lastly, I’ll be at every Slam also helping make social media content. As I said in earlier newsletters, Nic’s earliest recognition when he took over was that curling has a real content problem. There’s a dearth of it both from the highest organizations and from the teams and the players themselves. I know for sure he and his team have been helping and encouraging teams to do more on socials, and this early season has yielded some really cool and unique stuff like Tyler Tardi’s 10x10 challenge that has already been taken up by Oskar Eriksson and Magnus Ramsfjell, and Team Kleiter teammates Joshua Mattern and Trevor Johnson challenging each other to a 100m race and turning it into weeks of content in anticipation and getting their sponsor, Supplement King, involved as well. We have so much fun stuff planned for the season and I can’t wait for you to see it all.

So that’s it! It’s gonna be such a fun season. But don’t worry, I will not be abandoning you. Newsletter content will still be coming semi-regularly, and also don’t fear that just because I’m working for the Slams I’ll become fully biased and Slam-pilled. My eyes and ears will be on every aspect of the sport, and that’s also being encouraged by Nic. You may have seen, but I did some work for Curling Canada this week at the PointsBet Invitational that was super fun, and there will be more stuff like that from me that won’t just be Slams-focused.

As I said off the top, thank you as always for the support. There’s no doubt in my mind that the passionate curling fans who have supported a silly little newsletter about the sport for the last few years as well as my various other ventures have contributed in a huge way to this (when I tell people in curling what my subscriber numbers are, they’re always so blown away, and I thank you), and I look forward to bringing you even more content over this season, which will be my busiest yet. Love you all.

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Men’s

• How will Team Jacobs look?

This is the burning question to end all burning questions. Team Bottcher was very, very good the last two seasons. Last season they won 3 events, made the finals in 2 Slams and lost the semis in 2 others, and they came third at the Brier. Oh, and they spent a portion of the season at #1 in the World rankings. However you feel about Brendan Bottcher, he is one of the best last-rock throwers in the world, and this is a change that we almost never see in Year 2 of a quad from a top-ranked team. You usually don’t see lineups change at all among top teams, but if they do, it might be a front-end player in or out. It’s almost never the skip.

Making this move right now to bring in Brad Jacobs has some inherent risks. On paper, Brendan and Brad are a lot closer than you’d think. Brad obviously has that all-important Olympic gold medal, but he still only has the one Brier title (same as Brendan) and Brendan has more Brier finals. Brad has more Slams, but it’s only 7-5 and three of those wins were before Brendan had really figured out his team’s best lineup and was regularly in all of the Slams.

I believe everything Marc and Ben are saying about the fit, about the culture change, about the attitude shift. It’s clear they didn’t think it was going to work with Brendan. They wanted to get their swagger back. And obviously Brad is one of the finest last-rock throwers the game has seen this century. That doesn’t make the pressure any less.

Brad started this quad taking half a year off and then throwing third stones, citing not really wanting the pressure of throwing last anymore. He had some nice success with Team Carruthers last year throwing last and it’s clear it’s his best position, but he’s really in the fire now. A lot of focus has been put on Marc/Brett/Ben dumping Brendan, but it was also a really tough situation with Brad leaving Team Carruthers behind too. The added drama, the time crunch to get the team chemistry right, and the fact that most of the other top men’s teams did not change and have a 1- or 2-year head start on them? It won’t be easy. But it’ll be fun as hell to watch.

• Will the real ________ please stand up?

This was a question last year for the women’s side of the game, and it feels very relevant to the men’s side this season. Outside of Joel Retornaz, Yannick Schwaller, and Ross Whyte, every team coming over from last year’s top 10 or so men’s teams has some question marks surrounding uneven 2023-24 seasons. Brad Gushue won the Brier, finished second at the Worlds, and won the late-season Players’ Championship, but before that, it was one of his weaker seasons in recent memory. He missed the playoffs in a Slam for the first time in a long time and didn’t even make a Slam final until the Players’. Sure, his overall record would be the envy of most teams, but when it comes to Brad, you can only compare him to himself, and the results were a little worse and more inconsistent than we are used to seeing.

Niklas Edin stacked up his 7th world title, but his tour season also left something to be desired, not winning a single event, missing the playoffs outright at 2 Slams, and finishing with a 66% winning percentage, which would be among his lowest for a full season. Bruce Mouat won a whopping 6 events, but couldn’t find the podium at Worlds as the defending champion and there was an argument they shouldn’t have even been there given they finished third at the Scottish Championships behind Ross Whyte and James Craik. They also missed the playoffs at 2 Slams. Obviously Teams Jacobs and Carruthers have new lineups and so question marks are automatically built in, though I must admit I like the fit for Reid with Catlin Schneider–he’s bounced around a bit the last few seasons but the shot-making ability is inarguable and he very quietly finished in the top-5 stats-wise as a skip at the Brier last year with a young team ahead of him.

Mike McEwen was another team that had a big finish–second at the Brier and a semifinal finish at the Players’ to secure a 2025 Brier berth–but was still figuring things out throughout the year, missing the playoffs at a few Slams and a few of the big-name Tour events like Lloydminster and Dundas. They’ve started this season with a win in a competitive field at the Saville Shoot-Out, but can they keep that up? Matt Dunstone also didn’t look quite right after their fantastic first season as a team, coming 4th at the Brier and not making it out of a Slam quarterfinal. Can they rebound this season? And Kevin Koe had the Brier of nightmares, looking like he didn’t want to be there after about Game 3 and slumping to a 2-6 finish, leading to lots of rumours this offseason that team was finished. They aren’t, but this season will be a real indication of whether there’s life left there for a Trials push or not. With teams like Michael Brunner, Marco Hoesli, and Marc Muskatewicz making early season pushes already, we’ll see how these teams respond.

• Is this the year we have a Slam playoff with no Canadian teams in it?

This has been a weird, and at times strangely xenophobic, question on the minds of Canadian curling fans for a while now, but this year seems more likely than ever that this could be possible. As of this writing, only 3 Canadian men’s teams are firmly entrenched in the top 10–Gushue, Jacobs, and McEwen. Reid Carruthers is hanging onto 10th with Matt Dunstone and Kevin Koe in 11th and 12th, respectively, but Reid is only 5 points up on Marco Hoesli in 13th and the international threesome of Craik, Shuster and Muskatewicz are only 20 points back of them. All told, there are only 6 Canadian teams in the top 20 and with all the teams from 10 to 20 only separated by 50 points, it’s possible to imagine a scenario where we get to the January Slams and there might be 5 or less Canadian teams involved.

With 8 teams making the playoffs and Canada still having a handful of the best teams in the world, it seems unlikely that the entire Canadian contingent of teams in any given Slam would miss the weekend, but it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility, which is something we wouldn’t have been saying even 5 years ago. Countries like Switzerland, Scotland, and the United States are starting to stack up multiple good teams, and the one-offs like Joel Retornaz, Niklas Edin, Marc Muskatewicz and even Wouter Gosgens are maintaining their competitive edge. I think it’s still unlikely that this year is the year, but it’s hard not to peek towards the end of this quad with so many of the Canadian teams having players that are likely retiring or at least taking a step back and so many of these international teams being quite young that this reality is coming sooner rather than later.

Tap-Backs: It was a question on our minds last season too, but will this be the year that Korey Dropkin usurps John Shuster for good? He’s got the one US title under his belt back in 2021, but that was also a COVID-affected year that pushed the championships back to May. Shuster has mostly had his number otherwise, be that at US Nationals or Olympic Trials, but Dropkin continues to inch ever closer, both in World rankings and in their matches against one another. And of course, “The Ghostman” Danny Casper lingers in the background as well with a slightly new-look squad. It’ll be a tight race with Dropkin only 11 points back of Shuster and Casper only 40 points back of Korey…It’s been 11 years since Benoît Schwarz won an international title, the 2013 Euros. Since then, it’s been an awful lot of bronze. Only one Slam victory too, and that was 6 years ago. With Team Schwaller off to a phenomenal start to the year and putting the heat on Brad Gushue to push into the top 3, is this the big breakout year a lot of curling fans have waited for?…who is going to win Alberta? After losing their grasp on the free berth back to the Brier at the last second, Team Koe will be heading back to their provincials for another tangle with Aaron Sluchinski, who had their number last year, beating them comfortably in the final, and they have improved the lineup with the addition of Kyle Doering. That’s to say nothing of the decent competition below the top 2 as well, as the new van Amsterdam rink, which usurped a few former BC champions in Sterling Middleton and Jason Ginter, will be competitive, and young teams like Cole Adams and Johnson Tao will look to disrupt as well…how many first-year Brier skips will we see this season? Shaping up to be a lot of wide-open battles in many provinces. Can Owen Purcell finally get over the Matthew Manuel hurdle in Nova Scotia? Jordon McDonald looked awfully good at the Manitoba provincials last season and has already started this season with a trip to the Saville Shoot-Out finals and a U25 NextGen win (while being one of the youngest teams in that field). Reid Carruthers will be the favourite and Braden Calvert is hanging around, but McDonald put a scare into them both last season. Will Rylan Kleiter go all the way now in Saskatchewan considering that Mike McEwen isn’t standing in his path, or will veteran squads like Kelly Knapp or Steve Laycock wield their experience like a hammer? BC is as wide-open as it’s ever been and while Brent Pierce and Jeff Richard have been to The Show as skips before, the best skips underneath them like Glenn Venance and Cameron de Jong have not (Glenn has been to a Brier, but this is his first year behind the tee-head). And perhaps most interestingly, who wins Ontario? It’s Scott Howard’s first year playing skip full-time and he will definitely be the favourite, but Jayden King had a phenomenal provincials last season and a quick scan of the world rankings will show that Sam Mooibroek–super-charged with the addition of sharp-shooting Ryan Wiebe from Manitoba–is actually the highest-ranked Ontario squad currently. The pre-clinched Wild Card berths are doing exactly what they were supposed to and next February should get extremely exciting.

And there you have it! Lots to ponder for next season and with most teams already into their seasons, it’s going to be very fascinating to watch it all unfold over the course of the year. As I promised last newsletter, I’ll also have some exciting news to announce coming up, so stay tuned for that and I promise I won’t forget about this newsletter either. It may not be every 14 days or so like the last few seasons, but it’ll still happen, I’ll still do my famous mailbag issues, and we will still stay in touch.

Thanks as always for reading and subscribing and we’ll see you very soon.

But first! A quick update: I have paused all the paid subscriptions to this newsletter. I won’t be able to write here as much as in past seasons, and I didn’t want to feel like I was letting anyone down who paid me their hard-earned cash. I wish I could share the specific reasons for that right now, but rest assured, you’ll hear some news from me shortly and it’s all very exciting. You can still absolutely subscribe to this newsletter for free and get every edition delivered straight to your inbox so you never miss a word! You can do that by clicking this button right here:

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Alright, let’s get on with it. I think the women’s side of the game is a little more intriguing, so I’m gonna start there this time around. The men’s burning questions will land in your inbox in the next day or two.

• Can Team Homan continue their dominance?

What a difference a year makes. Last year, one of the burning questions was whether or not Team Homan was in it for the long haul. Rachel and Tracy had swapped the role of calling the game, they were fresh off of crashing out of the Scotties playoffs early, and while I never thought their first season was all that poor despite some naysaying, no one could have predicted last season.

It’s almost certainly the best tour season of all-time in any discipline, capped off with an undefeated Scotties run and a World title. We’ve now found out that they’ve signed a 5-year deal with AMJ Campbell in what they’re reporting to be the largest ever in women’s curling, and their lineup is almost certainly now locked for this quad and perhaps beyond. Can they be that good again?

Statistically speaking, that’ll be almost impossible. Runs like that are pretty much never duplicated. But if they can even come close to sniffing that sort of success again, it’ll still be one of the best seasons ever. One thing working in their favour, at least Canada-side, is that essentially every top Canadian women’s team has undergone a lineup change. Krysten Karwacki in for Briane Harris on Team Einarson. Chelsea Carey in for the retiring Jennifer Jones. Kaitlyn Lawes bringing in Becca Hebert as she expects her second child. Meghan Walter out on Team Cameron. Skylar Ackerman gone. Margot Flemming in for Team Skrlik. Clancy Grandy, Jenn Armstrong, Jill Brothers, LISA WEAGLE!!! It’s madness. As we’ve seen, teams can take a little while to jell and Rachel Homan will have no problem burying them under the ice until they figure it out.

• How does Chelsea Carey fit on her new squad?

It felt like we had to wait a long time to discover who Jennifer Jones’ replacement was going to be with the young triumvirate of Burgess, Zacharias, and Lenentine, and while it always felt like Chelsea Carey had at least one hand firmly grasped on the job, the 10 days after the last Grand Slam (and over two months after Jennifer’s announcement) felt interminable.

I predicted it at the time and it always made the most sense to me. Chelsea has flown under the radar as one of this generation’s most consistent players, winning two Scotties titles with two different lineups, losing an Olympic Trials final and consistently ranked near the top end of the sport, she was the most sensible option.

That said, stepping into Jennifer Jones’ shoes is never going to be the easiest job, and especially not after Jennifer both looked so good last year winning the PointsBet and a Slam, but also nearly grabbing the Cinderella capper to her career, losing the Scotties final to Homan. The girls also had viable options, as Laura Walker was definitely in the mix for the job and I believe Clancy Grandy was too, before she departed her team to take a job coaching with British Curling. I’m sure there were others who also inquired. It was one of the best jobs in curling, and it was openly available. The bottom line is that they had options with upside and so the pressure will be on Chelsea to make it work. I tend to have faith that it will, given the three youngsters are used to the “elder statesperson” role played by Jennifer the last two seasons, and also because Chelsea is a great last rock thrower. But a Scotties berth and a top-5 ranking aren’t easy to come by and it’ll be interesting to see if they can maintain or exceed their performance from last year.

• Who is the next young international team to step into the Top 10?

It’s been a wild last few seasons for teams moving themselves way up the rankings. Isabella Wranå was on her way before last season, but fully cemented herself in the upper echelon of the sport with a solid 23-24 season. Eun ji Gim was always good, but adding the youngster Min Ji Kim unlocked a whole new level for that squad, and now they’re third in the world. Stefania Constantini also made the leap last year, starting out in the 20s and steadily improving as the year went on.

So who is it going to be this year? It could be another Korean team on the rise, as 24 year-old Seungyoun Ha defeated Eunjung Kim in the semifinals to make the Korean National Championship and currently sits at 17. Xenia Schwaller has already started her year with a second-place finish in Oslo and a win at the StuSells in Oakville, inching her way into 9th place for the time being. And don’t look now, but Japan has a whopping FIVE rinks in the top 30, with Satsuki Fujisawa barely hanging on as the nation’s top team, and Kitazawa, Yoshimura, Tabata, and Ueno not far behind. And how about Marianne Roervik or Delaney Strouse? There’s a dominant top 3 in Homan, Tirinzoni, and Gim, but the rest of the top 10 could look very different by year’s end and it could be a lot of new blood making up the upper echelon of the game.

Tap-Backs: When will Briane Harris return? Will she return at all? It probably qualifies as a fully burning question, but enough ink has spilled on it already that I didn’t give it a full section. Certainly seems like Team Einarson hasn’t been exactly the same since, though I think Krysten Karwacki is as natural of a fit as there is…is this the year Isabella Wranå becomes Sweden’s top team? It was a burning question last year but a very strong second half from Anna Hasselborg fended them off. It won’t be easy again this season…who is Canada’s fifth-best team? It’s a clear top three of Homan/Carey/Einarson and Lawes is firmly in 4th, but you’ve got only about 50 points separating Sturmay, Cameron, Thevenot, Gray-Withers, Inglis, Skrlik, Brown, MacMillan, and Campbell. It’s likely we see 1 or 2 teams emerge from that group, and as I said above, almost every one of those teams has undergone a change. Who grabs it?…we’ve talked about the emerging Wranå/Hasselborg rivalry, but is there a similar one about to happen in Switzerland? Xenia Schwaller is in the top 10 and while Silvana Tirinzoni is one hell of an incumbent, all it takes is a hot week…who wins Manitoba? With all of the CTRS Wild Cards going to Manitoba teams, it’s as wide-open as the field has been in a long time. Kate Cameron, Beth Peterson, and Kristy Watling will open as favourites but Manitoba always has squads that can surprise…down South, is it Delaney Strouse’s turn? We’re only a few weeks into the season but she’s passed Tab Peterson in the world rankings for the first time. In fairness, she’s only ahead of Tab by a single spot but the addition of Sarah Anderson is paying early dividends…and finally, I’m always paying attention to British Columbia and this newsletter has sung the praises of Taylor Reese-Hansen’s ability for a while. She picked up Julianna Mackenzie and Kim Bonneau, giving her the strongest team she’s ever had, and they snagged some Curling Canada funding and a PointsBet berth by winning the NextGen Classic. With Clancy Grandy out of the province, it’s now a pretty even three-horse race for that BC Scotties spot between TRH, Corryn Brown, and the new-look Kayla MacMillan team. It’s going to be fun to watch.

There you have it. Lots to ponder ahead of this season, and not just on the women’s (or men’s) side specifically, but it’ll also be interesting to see where things head with the Slams’ new ownership group. I think big changes are on the way and lots of news about that should be coming soon. As I said above, I’ll be back with the men’s burning questions soon. In the meantime, subscribe (for free!), and follow me on Twitter and Instagram (I’m new there but doing some fun stuff!) at @cullenoncurling. See you soon, and get ready for another year!

I do think they will “nerf” the brooms further, yes. I touched on this a little bit in a previous newsletter, but talking to a lot of the top players that we did for the pod, one question we asked them was “could we see another Broomgate?” Most players agreed that there’s more rules in place now and it’s unlikely we’d see another sort of “scandal” where the players had to fight and the rules were unclear for an extended period of time, but most acknowledged they’d like the brooms to get a little less good. Brad Gushue was probably the biggest proponent of this, as he said he prefers the game to be a split of about 80/20, where a made shot is 80% the throw, 20% the sweep, and he thinks right now it’s closer to 50/50. No one else went that far, but a lot of players threw out numbers like 60/40, 70/30, and a lot had the sentiment the sweeping is too much now. Brad also specifically noted he would like the fabric to be changed again for this exact reason. No one else mentioned that, but when you have at least one top player thinking it, you probably have several.

I also know that sweeping techniques are being paid attention to a lot right now. There are a lot of top players that don’t like the knifing/carving that’s happening, and I also know there’s a lot of top players who don’t like where the leniency has gotten to with dumping on rocks. There has long, long been an appetite in the sport to keep the officials out of it, but I have heard more and more that players would be more accepting of officials being involved if it means things looking a little different than they do now.

And as for the blanks question, I’ve gone over that pretty extensively in the past, covering one thing I think is a potential solution in the half-point, and some other potential options.

While I did talk to broom manufacturers for this podcast, as you might imagine, they are often loathe to discuss trade secrets. For example, we visited BalancePlus’ HQ in Barrie, Ontario, and they wouldn’t let us see their warehouse because they were working on some stuff in there and didn’t want us to see it. Is that on handles? I have no idea. But it’s certainly possible.

One thing that has happened this past year that I’m not sure has been talked about a ton is that some of the bigger/stronger players on tour have switched to a thicker handle. The tapered handles that a lot of players use are lighter and offer a bit better grip and head speed, but some of the top players are getting so strong now that they are snapping them with some frequency. I know Amos Mosaner and Ben Hebert are two players for sure who have either fully gone back to a non-tapered, more rigid broom handle, or at least experimented with it. I would imagine this not only offers less risk of a broom snap, but might offer a little bit more power distribution too, similar to the flex in a hockey stick. Zdeno Chara famously used a stick flex that was not even measurable, with Shea Weber following not too far behind. The stiffer the flex, the more power you need to generate the result you’re looking for out of the stick, but if you can do it, the resulting power is much harder than a stick with a lighter flex. If you followed the careers of Chara and Weber, they were two of the hardest shooters in the entire NHL, being the only two winners of the All-Star Hardest Shot Contest for a decade. I’d imagine the broom functions the same way. If you’re strong enough to use it, a thicker shaft probably offers just a little bit more friction/power distribution on the head itself.

So all of this is to say, while shafts may not be officially being worked on, there is a potential upgrade available if you can handle it (no pun intended).

I think this mostly gets answered in my first response to Mac, but I do think they are looking at it, yes. We know there is another Sweeping Summit happening, we know that they tested foam density this offseason and have already made recommendations to broom companies/teams after that, and we know some players are unhappy. I think one thing Broomgate absolutely taught us is that equipment testing/regulations are never “done”. Manufacturers are always going to respond to feedback from players, and players are always going to want to push the limits of what equipment can do within the rules. With Broomgate, we learned the rules were FAR too lax, but now that they’re tighter, I think we’ll see them get more restrictive as time goes on and as necessary. Golf is a great example of this, as they continue to experiment with balls, drivers, and whatever else to keep the game enjoyable to watch and to keep the pros on a level playing field. I think curling will move along a similar path now and into the future.

I think part of the reason we talked about this in Episode 6 is because the answer is most likely no. Never say never, but there are reasons why full interviews (or parts of other ones) were left on the cutting room floor. I’ve had some similar questions in texts and DMs about the joke I made in E6 about there being a version of this podcast for curlers that would be much deeper into the curling weeds and 10 episodes long. My favourite of those was Team Grandy (now Team MacMillan) second Lindsay Dubue asking if we would ever see “Broomgate: Curler’s Version”. While I’d like to imagine I have the same pull as Taylor Swift does, the fact is I do not and the interview tapes are out of my control. But like I said, you really never know, and if there becomes a really good reason to do some extra episodes of this podcast or for some of these interviews to see the light of day, I hope that happens and we get to tell more of this story. Fingers crossed!

Alright, last one. We touch on this in the podcast, but no, I do not think that about Mike’s 2014/15 season, and I think that was also reflected in most of the responses from the curlers we talked to. Mike’s team was already one of the best in the world at the time, and really all that having those brooms did was make them slightly better. A small edge in curling among the top teams can make a big difference, but it wasn’t their fault and they were already going to be one of, if not THE, best teams anyway. As Mike outlines in the podcast, they never did any carving with the brooms, they always swept with two sweepers, etc. Did they make a few more shots because they could hold rocks better than other brooms? Maybe. But to say their entire success was because of the brooms would be completely false. Especially because of what we learned at the Sweeping Summit: all the brooms were too good. EQs were too good. Norways were too good. Even hair was too good! Etc. When sweeping with two sweepers going in opposite directions at the same time in that era, Hardline brooms maybe gave you a slight advantage over other brooms, but it wasn’t pronounced enough to say it was the sole or even major reason for anyone’s success. As we jokingly touched on in the show, my team was using Hardlines a full season before Mike, when almost no other team on tour was using them, and we topped out at 25th in the world, which is also about where we were for a few years after the Summit. If the brooms were THAT good and THAT much better than everyone else’s, we would’ve been in the top 10 or top 5 in those years leading up to the scandal.

There were also some claims in one of the pod interviews made about Mike’s team doing nefarious things with the brooms that year, but I played Mike that season and never saw it, and I don’t think a lot of other teams did either. And to answer your question about the insert, that was there the entire time, it did not get added in the 2015-16 season, which is why it didn’t get addressed on the pod. The insert was simply a part of the icePad head, and was from the beginning. Another thing we didn’t address in the pod but also came up around that time period was that Mike and his team were working with Hardline and using a broom fabric/head that was not available on store shelves. That was also debunked by just about everyone we talked to, so its inclusion wasn’t really necessary. Mike and Reid and us and anyone else using Hardline at that time were using the same icePads that were available off the shelf to everyone else.

There you have it! I hope you’re having a wonderful summer so far, and I’m very much looking forward to the next curling season with these big team changes, the new GSOC ownership, and more. I may see you once more before the season gets going, thank you as always for subscribing, I love you all and couldn’t do it without you.

It came out last week, on May 6th, and you have all been amazing in supporting the show, as we spent a few days last week as THE NUMBER ONE PODCAST IN CANADA. It’s been a dream come true to get this story out there, and the feedback has been amazing, from curlers and non-curlers alike.

This post is really just to say that if you haven’t listened to it yet, please do. If you like my work here, you’ll love this. The first three episodes are out now, wherever you get your podcasts, with three more to come. This link will take you to your pod platform of choice:

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Enjoy the show, let me know what you think in the comments, and I’ll talk to you at the end, maybe doing a sort of mailbag where I can answer any questions you might have about the show.

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On with the mailbag!

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Wouldn’t be a year-end mailbag if we didn’t discuss residency! I think it’s fairly tough to argue that residency rules haven’t hampered the growth of curling, particularly in smaller curling provinces. If you play in a mid- or low-tier province, the fact that curlers are now actively looking to parachute into your province to beat you can never be seen as a good thing, in my eyes. At least from a participation standpoint. From a competitive standpoint, knowing you have to play better teams maybe forces you to try different competitive strategies in order to keep up with the Joneses (I mean this metaphorically, but in some cases, literally Team Jones).

That said, it’s a hard spot for Curling Canada because nowhere else on earth has to deal with this, and it’s their job to win medals. It’s also very tough to argue that the lapse of residency rules hasn’t improved us on the world stage and allowed us to compete. Both Team Homan and Team Gushue in their current form do not exist without the residency rules as they are now constructed, and I don’t think anyone would say those two teams didn’t give us our best chance to win (and in Homan’s case, they did win). I think the Wild Card rules this year, with removing the top 3 teams from provincials competition, has helped a little bit, but the problem there too is that those Wild Cards are statistically much more likely to come from top-tier curling provinces than mid-tier ones, Gushue’s berth excepted (sorry NL), and thus, it’s still a tough out to win your province.

Taking all of that into consideration, however, there are other ways to grow the game outside of “making the Brier/Scotties as many times as possible”, and it would be easy to balance out the residency rule effect with some other changes to the game, some of which I detailed in my newsletter last week.

Best move of the offseason for me is Laurie St-Georges adding Lisa Weagle. I know that we look to the big-ticket skip moves often, but I think Lisa is going to bring experience and know-how to that team that will automatically raise their level. I think most of us who have watched them over the years at the Scotties have seen the flashes of brilliance and thought that team could be capable of more, and I think Lisa helps them unlock some of that.

I would not say this is the "worst” move because they couldn’t do anything about it, but I think the team hurt the most by the changes is Team Carruthers. I think they made probably the strongest move they could have based on who was available by adding Catlin Schneider at the third position, but losing someone of Brad’s calibre throwing the brick, and losing him to a rival, is the toughest offseason hand that was dealt.

Quite frankly though, and I have no inside knowledge of this, but I am hearing there’s a chance Brendan Bottcher is taking next year off. If that is truly the case, then that’s the worst move. Canada’s cutthroat team system forcing this year’s second-best skip by points (130 more than third place!), who also happens to be 32, into a year off is a really tough pill to swallow for the country, for Curling Canada and for the fans.

I talked about this on my fun year-wrap appearance on From the Hack, but there really isn’t much precedent for the #2 team in Canada and #4 in the World replacing their skip in the middle of a quad without some sort of retirement/injury forcing the change. So I’m more inclined to think it’s a one-off, but it does give us a further glimpse into the increasingly professional nature of the game and what these teams are now willing to do to get to the Olympics.

There’s two sides to this. So let’s start with the second question, because I think that makes more sense. Most curling teams do enjoy hanging out with each other, and in a lot of cases, there are very tight bonds there. As I’ve said before, there’s a reason why Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert keep returning to play with one another. There’s a reason why Brad Gushue and Mark Nichols have played together their whole lives. There’s a reason why Colton Flasch has consistently played with the Marsh Brothers. Yes, talent is a factor. If Ben Hebert wasn’t very good, then it wouldn’t matter how much Marc liked playing with him, at some point he would move on to a better lead that he felt could help him win. There needs to be a marriage of talent and friendship. But if the talent is there, more often than not, you’re looking to play with people that you have a friendship with, or believe you could have a friendship with.

That said, it is because of these friendships that do form that the personal and business can often be very difficult to separate, and why in team breakups, feelings are often hurt. As much as you want to be able to understand as a player that this is ultimately a business, there are feelings involved and it’s impossible to separate them. Now, are there teams where you can see the split coming a mile away and it’s pretty close to mutual and friendships are maintained because it’s clear the “business” side of the game is over? Sure. But are there more situations where you get cut from a team and you feel the worst you’ve ever felt? Definitely.

If we do, it’s a long ways away. Competing to go to the Worlds is way too stitched into this country’s curling fabric to see that go away. If anything, they’ll do what they’re now doing at the Olympic Trials, with doing a best-of-3 or something similar. That way, the better team is more likely to go anyway.

I would actually disagree with this notion. I understand what you’re getting at, but seconds need to be able to draw and have a finesse take-out game far more than they used to. It used to be that seconds were just your best outright hitters, both in the house and runbacks/peels. Now with the five-rock rule, the second position has demanded excellency in drawing and teams are favouring softer-weight hits, which they’ve had to master. Plus, seconds are part of the same evolution that leads have undergone, in that you have to be a beast on the broom now also, or you aren’t considered worthy of a spot on a top team. Teams used to be strictly chosen (or at least mostly chosen) based on shot-making ability and now, if you wanna play front end on a top 10 team, you better be a slab or you’re toast.

It’s a question from a faithful paid subscriber, Bill! Thanks so much for subscribing Bill. From everything I know, I do not believe Dave Murdoch has had a hand in these team changes. I’m sure he would be available as a consultant if teams were looking for advice or a helping hand, but I don’t think he has told any of the teams what to do, or that they have to do it. It’s possible we see a more aggressive Dave after this quad in terms of that stuff as he continues to get the lay of the land here in Canada, but I don’t think he’s involved in things like that right now. And unfortunately for us, no, I don’t see the Leafs beating the Bruins. :(

Fellow curling podcaster Edward has a question for me from the Twitter DMs. Now, as someone who is not from the Territories, I figured this question was best left answered by someone who is. So I texted Kerry Galusha. Here’s what she said:

“That’s an interesting question. When I first read it, I didn’t think it was absolutely crazy, but then thinking about it, it’s a bit weird. We are a part of Canada, so to be excluded from a national event would be weird. I honestly do think the Territories should have one spot at the nationals instead of three though, I’ve always thought this. I don’t see how the Territories are going to continue to develop, we are going to get worse. But that’s a whole other issue lol.”

So there you have it. The answer is no. And a new question has been asked. Maybe next time we’ll tackle that.

Again, no insider knowledge here, and I don’t know this for sure, but I do believe the GSOC is looking strongly at axing blanks. As you said, Nic has been very vocal on Twitter and on his various media appearances since the announcement that he does not like blank ends. Whether that takes effect in time for next season or not I have no idea, and what that makes the format look like, I also don’t know. I’d agree that if it does change, it’ll likely go the MD route of having the hammer flip every end regardless. I’m hoping it doesn’t, because I see some issues with going with alternating hammer.

Does it drive more offence? Well sure, as scores are likely going to look inherently bigger because someone has to score every end. Does it drive more offensive play is the question, and I’m not sure the answer is yes. I think that for a long time, “blank ends” has been a catch-all for complaining curling fans, as they seem to think if blanks are eliminated, teams are gonna go buck-wild. Unfortunately, I am not convinced that eliminating blank ends turns every game into a skins game.

See, the thing with the skins game format is that there’s an inherent value to playing aggressively without the hammer. If you steal, you win the skin. Duh. But it isn’t just that: the value in playing aggressively without the hammer comes because if you steal, you get the skin, but even if you force to one, you get the hammer back (and presumably a better chance to win the next skin, which is now worth more with a carryover). And you also know that if it’s a blank, your opponent keeps hammer for that same, more valuable carryover. You want to avoid that at all costs. I don’t know that there is as much inherent value to stealing if you eliminate blanks and choose an alternating-hammer format.

The problem with alternating hammer is that the team with hammer has less options. Right now, the “good” options are to try to score 2+, or blank. If the hammer alternates every end, their only goal is scoring 2+, and that makes the strategy without the hammer much simpler: prevent them from scoring 2+. This makes playing defensively for the team without hammer not only a strategy, but the most viable strategy. If you know that your opponent is drawing the house for 1 on their last if no rocks are in play, do you not aggressively try to keep all rocks out of play?

You might say, “but John, the 5-rock rule, there will be guards up!” Yeah, but it’s the same strategy that teams currently WITH the hammer would employ. If it looks like they can’t score more than one, a lot of teams with hammer will currently bail, but that isn’t always easy, because most of the time, you’ve started the end with the intent of scoring 2+. You probably have to do some work to get to a bail and a blank, and bailing won’t always be an option. Now, imagine if bailing happens by the team WITHOUT hammer, and happens instantly. “Bailing” will almost always be the best strategy, especially if you think you’re better than your opponent. If you feel confident you are better and can better utilize the hammer, then you’ll spend your ends without hammer mostly content that the other team scores a single. Again, it’s fun to imagine that every team just plays aggressively now with a change, but I don’t think they will.

Let’s run through a scenario. Let’s say it’s early in the game, maybe 1-1 in the third. I think you’ll most likely see the team without hammer actively trying to get the team with hammer to score one. If you’re a defensively-inclined team and you don’t have hammer, your first rock is almost always going into the house. That’s one less guard up right there. Normally, the team without hammer would throw a guard, but because there’s no blank option and they KNOW they get the hammer back next end, they aren’t incentivized to throw a guard at all. That’s the value proposition, right? Right now, the team without hammer is incentivized to play at least a little bit aggressively, because that is their best chance at getting the hammer back. A blank doesn’t get it back for them. Now, if they KNOW they get the hammer back, there is no incentive in trying to do anything other than getting your opponent to score 1, as that’s a MUCH easier situation to manufacture than a steal, especially if your opponent is drawing for a single if the house is empty.

Let’s continue. Probably, the team with hammer throws a corner. If you wanna play REALLY defensive (and your lead is good), you chip it into the house and roll your guard out. If you want to play semi-defensive, you go around it and you’re lying two with one buried behind the corner guard. Now the team with hammer has to decide if they want to put up a second corner guard with you already counting two with one buried around, or they are content with only a single guard up and they follow you around. In either case, a force is almost immediately on the table.

Now, maybe the team with hammer plays a different strategy. You put the first rock in, they throw a centre guard on it. Ok, now at least the play is around the centre, but again, you’re likely only dealing with one guard in play. Team without hammer will likely come around it again on their second, now they’re lying two buried and you’re throwing. You’re certainly going to be very scared to throw a SECOND centre on that (especially early in the game), so you’re either freezing where any chip-off kills you, or you’re running back, which also immediately brings a 1 into play.

Obviously this won’t be every end and some teams will be willing dance partners and it’ll create more interesting games. But I think at the top level of the game, completely eliminating blanks turns curling into a largely 1-point game and that could make games more boring than whatever you think a boring game is now with a team that blanks too much. I think if you eliminate blanks, other rule changes have to come into play to ensure there’s an incentive for teams without hammer to try to steal, or to play aggressively. It works in MD because every end starts with a guard and a rock in the back 4-foot, and there’s only 5 rocks each to work with. There simply isn’t enough time to consistently force your opponent to 1 with their last by playing defensively, the only way out is through. But with 8 rocks, a fresh house, and the hitting ability of top teams…

And of course, we also completely ignoring how this makes the draw to the button even more important than it already is. I think you have to give teams the option if they win the draw to choose whether they want hammer in odds or evens, and the team that wins will pick evens. Going into the game knowing you have hammer in 10? Even more incentive to play defensively. Obviously this entire write-up is predicated on the hammer automatically changing hands and not some sort of different rule set, but I’d imagine if it does change, that’s where it goes, and I’ll be VERY curious to see if it actually increases scoring outside the nominal “a team scores every end so scoring automatically goes up”.

Alright, we made it. Please listen to Broomgate tomorrow. I love you and appreciate you reading, as always.

Before we get started, a reminder that my podcast about Broomgate drops this Monday, May 6th! The first two episodes of the six-part series are out then, and then the remainder will drop one episode at a time for the four weeks following. I’ve been working on this project for over two years, and I’m so excited for you to hear it. More content to come on that, but for now, you can listen to the trailer and follow/subscribe to the podcast (for free!) by clicking this link:

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I think team chemistry is important, and it can absolutely make a team better than the sum of its parts. That was evident this season with Mike McEwen’s run at the Brier. Once that team really started to jell, they became one of the best teams in the country and earned a Wild Card berth for next year. That said, it’s not everything to a team’s success and I think Canada in particular has had lots of teams throughout its past where not everyone is best friends—or even likes each other—and still has managed to find success. I think most teams would tell you that you can stay together as long as you want and love each other like a family, but talent still stands above chemistry. Chemistry is just a piece of it.

I’m guessing this comment is about Team Bottcher in particular, and I think that’s a special case where Marc and Ben are retiring after this quad and want to find a mix that they don’t think they have with Brendan. I think in their case, it is actually about chasing chemistry. Marc/Brad already have it from spending 3 years in the house together, and I think they feel like their outsized personalities would benefit from a skip with a more outsized personality, as opposed to Brendan, who is more reserved.

I think it would be great, as I know 5U is huge in the States. The only issue I foresee here is how deep curling is in Canada. What does 5U mean here? Lots of Canadian curlers have high school and club curling littering their past. Can our country properly accommodate new curlers and encourage them in this way, or are our leagues too established to allow for the proper development of 5U players? I’m not sure. What I mean to say is that the path right now in a lot of Canadian clubs is:

Learn to Curl (or just randomly sign up for a league) → Beginner’s league (if the club even has one) → play front end for a long-established skip in a men’s/ladies/other league

So I’d think there needs to be infrastructure at the club level to support new curlers coming in and encouraging them to form their own teams with everyone at roughly the same experience level, but without having to play in established leagues where they get their asses kicked every week. I think it’s something that could absolutely boost the game in the country, but things would have to change at the club level for sure and I don’t know if that’s entirely realistic.

It’s a very interesting question and one Kevin Martin has pondered about often on Inside Curling. The short answer is that I really don’t know. What’s the path to that where it makes sense for curling teams? Here’s two things I know to be true about elite competitive curlers:

1. They are very protective of everything they do, information/team-control wise. Just look at how new teams/players are even announced. Rather than let established media break the news for more views/attention like in other sports, the teams often insist on doing it themselves so they can control the messaging. Teams are going to be very weird about accepting this as an overall change.

2. Curling teams don’t make that much money. How and by whom is the GM being paid, and how much are they making? What exactly does their role look like? Are they in control of the team’s travel/practice schedule/administrative/socials and what does that look like?

The only way I ever see this happening is if there’s enough money in the game where teams are owned by companies, similar to what happens with the Japanese curling teams. They’re all owned by businesses, though they don’t have a GM-type structure. I could see a future where, let’s say, Princess Auto says “ok. We have $150,000 we’re willing to give to one curling team. $30k of that is going to a general manager who picks the team, does all of their non-curling tasks, and sets the team’s lineup year-over-year”. But is that enough money for a person to want to GM? Or for a team to accept one? Until/if we get to a future where there’s millions of dollars at stake, I can’t see it.

Let’s answer a few questions about the GSOC in a row.

For 2026-27? 8 Slams. 4 Canada, 2 US, 1 Europe, 1 Asia. Feel free to swap one of the Canadian Slams for an extra one in Europe if you’d like.

This question comes in from faithful subscriber Cate. Thanks for subscribing, Cate! To be quite honest, I don’t know what it means. Does that answer your question? Haha. I can take a few guesses, though. To me, what I’ve heard a lot from Nic Sulsky (the new head of the Slams) is the word content. He wants there to be more supplemental content around the Slams/curling in general, and for a sport that is an absolute WASTELAND of content compared to other sports, I couldn’t be happier about that (and not just because I’m one of the few curling content creators).

Does that mean more streaming? I’m not sure, but you have to think that if you’re spending millions of dollars to buy a property, probably the first thing you set to work on is getting it seen in more places. Nic’s already said they’re pitching the Slams to US TV networks, and I’d imagine if you just spent millions of dollars on a thing, you’re none too pleased that two of the days of the thing aren’t televised or even streamed on the internet. So I’m sure they’re looking at that.

Nic has also made it pretty clear so far that he doesn’t like blank ends. Will there be rule changes so he doesn’t have to see them anymore? I don’t know. The Slams will still in some ways be bound to what World Curling and to a lesser extent Curling Canada are doing, because you want your top teams to play in the Slams. If the Slams permanently switch to all Skins games or other weird formats you don’t see at the Brier/Worlds, you may lose some teams. So any rule changes I think will have to have player input, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the TCG’s stamp put on them pretty quickly. The one nice thing with the Slams with regards to rule changes is that you don’t have to do them at every Slam. They’ve toyed with different formats for different Slams in the past, and I wonder if we see the return of some of that.

Five changes?? Wow, Nic has a lot of faith in me. I’ll try not to turn this into its own giant newsletter and keep it as short as I can.

1. Tier 2. The Slams still feel vibrant enough now, but if we keep heading the way we are, in 10 years, there will not be enough teams to populate the Slams. There needs to be a firm Tier 2, and it needs to exist both within and outside of the Slams. For example, I have heard some chatter that maybe each Slam would have its own Tier 2 event, so like the Tour Challenge, but at every event. That’s great, but also causes its own set of issues. Tier 2 teams have WAY less funding than Tier 1 teams, and getting to every Slam would not be easy. A true Tier 2 would need to include a smattering of WCT events as well so teams wouldn’t be precluded from participating if money is a barrier.

2. Broadcast. Curling broadcasts have looked exactly the same for the entire time they have been televised. The Slams have made some minor innovations (around the rings coverage, some new camera angles), but for the most part, it’s the same product as the Brier/Scotties product on TSN and the product on CBC before that, etc. I would love something a little more dynamic, with pre- and post-game shows, and I think it’s gotta look younger. No offence, but the commentator acting the part of audience surrogate in between two 55+ year-old former players is getting a little stale for my liking. You don’t have to fire anyone or anything, but some adjustments to the overall look and feel are needed. The Slams are the perfect place to experiment. No other sport goes to such great lengths to describe the fundamentals of the game every single broadcast, and I think it’s time to start treating the audience like they’re knowledgeable, and if they aren’t, to let them catch up on their own.

3. Audience. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: put the audience on the ice. Yes, the Slams has the on-ice lounge, but I want more. I want them surrounding the sheet, particularly during the final. Let’s get some atmosphere going.

4. Super Tournament. Curling used to be very good at these. The Canada Cup East and West, the Skins Game qualifiers, etc. We used to run 32- and 64-team tournaments with zero abandon. Enough with this 16- or 24-team, RR stuff. That’s fine most of the time, but I wanna see a year-end, winner-takes-all, 64-team triple. Do it in two arenas, whatever you gotta do, but who doesn’t want to see that? Make it a mecca event, something fans will want to travel to. Put $250k up for the winner. Let’s get wild.

5. Make the Curlers Talk. Since I’ve already touched on the content piece, it’s time for curlers to step up and start saying how they really feel. I know they have relationships with other players and teams and don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but…it’s time to start hurting some feelings. You want people to care about the sport? These are the sacrifices we have to make. You can be friends in 10 years when we’re all retired. For now? Tell us how you really feel. Please. I’m begging you.

This one comes in from subcriber Jeff. Thanks for subscribing, Jeff! Luckily, the women’s answer is very easy right now, and it’s simply that you take Team Homan in its entirety. They’re fresh off the best season in curling history, you have everyone playing down a position and that has completely maximized their strengths, the team chemistry is clearly there, and Rachel Homan is playing as good as she’s ever played. Easy. And I’ll take Shannon Birchard as my fifth.

On the men’s side, I think I’d get a little more frisky and I’d take Brad Gushue and Mark Nichols, alongside Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert. For me, Brad’s the best last-rock thrower in the men’s game currently, and his chemistry with Mark is unparalleled. Plus, Mark is still an amazing thrower so you can’t break them up.

Get Marc back down to second for a bit, obviously he’s one of the best thirds in the world but he has experience at second and can still sweep (and is an excellent judge) so I’d get him down there to maximize my team’s chances. And obviously Geoff Walker has the built-in chemistry with Brad and Mark so it’s tough to leave him out, but Ben has an edge in sweeping and the slightest of edges in shooting, and I don’t want to die. So Ben it is. Plus you get the added bonus that it might be the final quad for all four of these guys, so they’ll want it almost as bad as I do (potentially about to die). And for my fifth I’ll take Brett Gallant. Can play up and down the lineup, has familiarity with all four players, and the team will need a bit of youth just in case.

Alright, there you have it! Part 1 done and dusted. I’ll get to a bunch more of your questions later this week as we continue to wrap up this season. And go listen to the Broomgate trailer!!! See you soon.

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Now, off to my favourite tournament of the year, the SGI Canada Best of the West. Normally, I would do a full event breakdown, but there’s just way too much to talk about in the rest of the curling world, so I’ll give a truncated version of what you’d normally get. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a U30 event run by Matt Dunstone, Rylan Kleiter, and Dustin Mikush each spring in Saskatoon. It’s an amazing time and a bit of a throwback event, where it’s the end of the season, everyone is playing against their peer group, and a great time is had. And everyone gets provincial jackets, which is a beautiful touch. I was there commentating for the third year in a row, and it’s one of the highlights of my curling calendar.

On the women’s side, it was Abby Marks defeating a 3-handed Kayla Skrlik in the final. Often you’ll see teams that are breaking up play through the Best of the West together before calling it quits (which we’ll see on the men’s side in a second), but Brittany Tran didn’t accompany the team to Saskatoon and with new teammate Margot Flemming ineligible to play due to her Scotties participation, they went with 3. It worked well for them until the finals, where it was clear they ran out of gas and Abby Marks was in control throughout. It’s the last event for that team as Abby heads off to an intense schooling program, and that ensured we went 3-for-3 on crying at the BOTW. It’s funny how one tournament can become so emotional, but as it often marks the end for long-time teams (or players), it’s very cool and unique and even emotional for me too, to be a small part of the end of team’s journeys on the microphone.

On the rest of the women’s side, it was very cool to see U20 team Emily Cherwinski make the semifinals. I talked with their families as I was broadcasting their quarterfinal, and they said the girls were absolutely thrilled to have just made the quarters, but after a great QF against Jessica Wytrychowski, they made it to the semis, and gave Skrlik a good run once they were there. It’s what this tourney is all about. Also losing the semis was Taylor Reese-Hansen, who was trying to ensure BC got their names on the trophy for the third year in a row. Unfortunately they came up just short, giving up a steal in 8 to Marks, but they played well all weekend. And my favourite thing at the BOTW? Team Holly Hafeli, also a U20 team and one of the Wild Cards there, got Dynasty Wild Card hoodies made with “Team Hafeli” down the sleeve. Just goes to show that in its third year how much the BOTW means to teams and it was very endearing. And they almost made the playoffs, too.

On the men’s side, it was a victory in their final game as a team for Team Wiebe, who I’ve always felt had a lot of talent and it was nice to see them cap their run as a team with this W. Ryan is off to Ontario to play third for Sam Mooibroek in what should be a great young squad, and I’m curious to see what the remainder of his team does. Ty Dilello has long been a sneaky good third in my opinion, and the Flatts are your prototypical young, strong front end. I’d imagine they could find a skip or find decent options in (or out) of Manitoba. For Rylan Kleiter, it was an opportunity missed to put their name on the BOTW trophy for a second time, and they just didn’t look up to the task in the final. There’s an argument to be made they shouldn’t have been there either, as Jordon McDonald had an open draw to the 4-foot (with backing) that he missed in the 8th end of the semis. Electing not to play to the backing (which was side 4) but instead drawing cold to the 4-foot, he came out a bit wide and they called the sweeping too late to arrive at the backing properly. I was very impressed with Team McDonald this week though, and Jordon in particular. That’s a kid that has all the shots in his locker and one we’ll be keeping an eye on.

For the rest of the men’s side, it was nice to see Jared Kolomaya make the semifinals for Team BC. It wasn’t the best season for them, but I’ve long liked Jared’s game and playing with some youngsters, they showed well. Curious to see where he ends up next year in the BC Men’s shuffle. It was also quite a young field on the men’s side, and of the youngsters, I was most impressed with Joshua Bryden. He’s got pedigree (his dad Randy is a Canadian Mixed champ and a Saskatchewan Seniors champ) and looks really calm out there. He just won the USports championship back in March and has a bright future ahead, especially in Saskatchewan where there’s lots of room to grow alongside Rylan Kleiter as some of the other teams continue to retire.

The Curling Group

Alright, moving on to the big news from yesterday: the Slams have been bought. Sportsnet will continue to air them, but newly-formed The Curling Group now owns them. Here’s some of what I know about it:

1. I believe this has been in the works for a while. The Slams being owned by Rogers never made a ton of sense as they began to grow, as Rogers owns many other properties, and many other sports properties, and the Slams could never get the attention they deserved. I think the quotes from Rob Corte in this Jonathan Brazeau piece tell the tale: they weren’t necessarily looking to sell, but with Sportsnet being able to remain involved, a group purchasing the Slams raising the eyeballs on the game and thus, the eyeballs on Sportsnet, made perfect sense for them.

2. John Morris mentions it in this Ted Wyman article and Nic Sulsky confirmed it on Inside Curling: they want to go international. I’ve heard a few different things from a few different people, but I would imagine some sort of schedule with 2-3 Canadian events, 1 USA, 1 Europe, 1 Asia could be a schedule moving forward. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see the Slam schedule increase, moving towards 8-10 events a season. TCG has already indicated it’ll likely be status quo for the next two seasons, but I think that’s an eventual plan.

3. I have heard that once the interest from The Curling Group was gauged, Sportsnet canvassed for other offers, but those ultimately fell short, either for funding or other reasons. I also think TCG’s willingness to have the property remain on Sportsnet for the broadcast was a huge factor.

4. I saw a LOT of people yesterday on Twitter worrying about Nic Sulsky’s position as CEO of PointsBet as evidence that PointsBet is his main financial backer/silent partner, and that this is a sports gambling play. He’s announced on his LinkedIn (and elsewhere) that he’s leaving PointsBet to do this. So this isn’t that. Does it mean curling and the Slams will have no gambling association moving forward? Probably not. Still too much money to be had from those companies out there. But his association with PointsBet has nothing to do with this. Plus, they still have 2 years left on their deal with Curling Canada anyway.

Now with that out of the way, my opinions:

1. It’s hard not to imagine this as being a good thing for curling. One thing I really like? Nic Sulsky is not a curler, and hasn’t been involved in curling outside of PointsBet’s Curling Canada sponsorship the last few years. I think a lot of curling stakeholders over the years have been afraid of losing curling’s core audience. The ratings are there and have been there—but they’re dropping. And that audience is getting older, and doesn’t engage with content in the way that other sports do. Having someone from outside the game come in, he won’t be afraid to take risks and do things differently. For once, it will be nice to have people interested in expanding the game, rather than catering to an existing audience that is aging and I am generalizing here of course, but a little bit stodgy.

2. If the GSOC is expanding its scope, both in terms of where events are held and number of events, there HAS to be a Tier 2 component to this. The game is already losing way too many good young (and old) players, and if the Slams go to 8-10 events per year, we’re going to lose even more. That model needs to be built in here, or there will be no curlers left to populate the Slams in a decade.

3. Nic Sulsky talked a lot on Inside Curling about creating shoulder content for curling, and all I can say is that it’s about fucking time. It’s always baffled me that Sportsnet and TSN have been willing to devote literally hundreds of hours to curling programming and have ZERO related content on their networks. TSN will air “The Top 50 Curling Shots” on TSN4 at 1 am, but that’s about it. There’s no pregame show, there’s no post-game show, and I’ve heard from a few people who have tried, there’s no willingness from those networks to expand that content, even online, which I find very perplexing. A true focus on content creation, and one that involves the athletes, is so sorely needed for the game and I’m excited to see where they allocate funds to do that. And I’m not just saying that because I am a curling content creator.

4. Finally, I am curious to see how they remake the broadcast. One would presume that just because Sportsnet is airing it doesn’t mean they’re deciding how it is broadcast. Maybe they will retain full control, but I do wonder if TCG will get a big say in the overall presentation/the broadcast booth/etc. I’m looking forward to seeing what (if any) changes are coming there.

The Worlds

Since my last update, both the men’s and women’s worlds have happened. My god. I won’t go too long on either, but I’ll say that I’m thrilled Rachel Homan got her gold medal. This season just wouldn’t have felt the same without it, and they deserved it for their absolute dominance. It means that once this season is fully wrapped after the Players, we’ll safely be able to call it the most dominant season in curling history.

I said it on Winnipeg’s CJOB Radio a few weeks back, but we often think of Mike McEwen’s season in 2014-15 as the most dominant season ever. 12 spiels, 11 finals, 8 wins. Winning percentage of 86%. Won $70k more than #2 on the Money List. But he didn’t make the Brier that year, as Reid Carruthers beat him in the Manitoba final. Rachel Homan currently? 9 spiels, 8 finals, 7 wins. Winning percentage of 92%. Nearly 100 points up on #2 on the WCT Rankings List. Plus, two of those wins were the Scotties and World Championships. One of those spiels had a retired Heather Nedohin at skip. It’s already the best season ever but if they win the Players, it genuinely may never be touched.

As for the Men’s Worlds, boy does Niklas Edin just find a way to win there. It hasn’t been his best tour season, losing the Euros, missing the playoffs at several Slams, and zero spiel wins on the year. But he looked so dominant again at the Worlds, and has the same air of invincibility there that Brad Gushue has had at the last 8 years of the Brier. Even when he doesn’t win (which isn’t often), Edin feels like he will, and every game against him is a battle. And what a treat that 10th end was, Brad’s shot was not necessarily of amazing difficulty but rolling it perfectly the way he did was SO hard. That forced Niklas to make a VERY tough draw, and he makes it for his seventh title. So impressive.

Rumour Roundup xoxo

Since the last go-around here on this newsletter, lots has been settled in the curling world. And lots changed! I said in my last newsletter that if we were to see team changes, a lot would be one member in, and one member out. That has happened on more teams than I’ve thought, with St-Georges, Ackerman, Skrlik, Cameron, and more announcing changes. We’ve already seen Corryn Brown unite with Sarah Koltun—as I predicted—with Margot Flemming moving to Skrlik and their former teammate Brittany Tran moving a province over to Saskatchewan. That rumoured New Brunswick team I predicted also came to fruition, minus Andrea Kelly. That’s a team that will be the favourite to win NB for sure.

Obviously all eyes are still on the remainder of Team Jones once Jennifer exits the 4-person game this week. Saw some tweets from people suggesting maybe Karlee Burgess is a free agent. She is not. There’s no reason to think the remaining 3 will break up. They have a Scotties Wild Card sewn up for next season, and they’re not going to lose all of their precious Trials points splitting up. I believe their next skip has been chosen, and it came down to three names in the end getting final consideration. I think I was on the right track with a few names from my previous newsletter, but unsure of who the final choice was. We’ll see when they make the official announcement who it is.

Kate Cameron is in an interesting situation because Taylor McDonald is already their import, and is expected back next season. That limits options to Manitobans, or people who are willing to move there (or have birthright). I’m sure most would figure Scotties spare Kelsey Rocque would slide in there, but in the past she has been reticent to play a busy schedule, and Team Cameron played the second most games on tour this year (only Clancy Grandy was ahead). I have a hard time imagining that’s a match. Is there a match from the Beth Peterson team if they aren’t sticking together? Maybe members of Team Watling would be in the same boat. I could see Liz Fyfe or new free agent Sara Oliver being options, but I’d guess they’d want a true third (or maybe a skip with Kate returning to third but they had a great year with her on the T), as Taylor hasn’t played much back end.

It’s a little more interesting on the men’s side now. With the announcement of John Epping joining the Horgans, I tweeted yesterday that I’d imagine that paves the way for Mat Camm to join Scott Howard, assuming Glenn retires (which I expect). I also think Jason Camm is going there too, whether it’s a 5-man team or Dave/Tim are leaving, that I don’t know. But Jason has been cryptically saying on socials that an announcement is coming on his end and I’m guessing that’s it.

Aaron Sluchinski announced that Kerr Drummond is leaving the squad, and that’s a spot that will be in demand. I can’t speculate too much because announcements haven’t been made, but I’m expecting some further Alberta and British Columbia team dissolution and I think someone from those dissolved teams will move over to Sluchinski’s team. Cryptic enough for you? ;) Most of the fun is putting the puzzle pieces together anyway, right?

And lastly, as I predicted earlier, I think most of the top men’s teams are staying the same. I know some have thought after the Brier result there may be changes coming to Team Koe, but I don’t see it. Same for Reid Carruthers. And obviously with Brier Wild Cards available and good seasons behind them, Gushue, Bottcher, Dunstone, and McEwen will keep their lineups into next year as well.

Alright that was a long one, but a necessary one. I think as the dust continues to settle on the season in the next 7-10 days I’ll return with a long-overdue mailbag, so stay tuned for that. Thank you so much for reading and subscribing and supporting curling.