Is Cameron Bryce's New 'Mercenary Team' the Future of Curling?

I'm writing again...

Hello friends. Thanks for sticking with me. I plan to put a few newsletters together this summer for you (curling content never sleeps), and as you might have seen if you follow me on Twitter, I solicited some mailbag questions. That newsletter should happen at some point next week (if you have a question for me, drop it in the comments below and maybe I’ll answer it!).

In the meantime, I also wrote a piece for the Grand Slam of Curling website, as Cameron Bryce announced this week he’s putting together what might be curling’s first-ever multinational team, with 3 team members from Scotland and 2 from Canada. I think there’s a very good chance that we see more teams like this in the future with how competitive the race for national funding is within certain countries, and just how deep a lot of countries are getting in general. It also offers a potential pathway for curlers who might be thinking about quitting or retiring to have success on tour, get into Slams/Rock League, and win some money, without having to worry about winning national and world titles, or worrying about what their nation’s selection committee might choose for them.

I really enjoyed chatting to Cameron and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the article too. An excerpt below:

We have never seen a team of curlers this accomplished join forces across national borders, and for Bryce, he sees it as an opportunity to expand both what is possible for himself and what is possible within curling.

“We haven’t been in the British Curling program for a few years now, which has allowed us free rein to do what we want with regards to training and team set-up,” Bryce said via telephone. “It allows us 100 per cent control of the team, but the downside of that is being outside of the program means we get no funding from British Curling and essentially guarantees that we’ve given up any potential of representing Scotland internationally.

“Without that option, this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while.”

While Bryce has played in several Grand Slams and won his fair share of World Curling Tour events, he has long been stuck behind a two-headed dragon in Scotland, with reigning Olympic silver medallist Bruce Mouat spending a good portion of this quadrennial ranked No. 1 in the world, and world bronze medallist Ross Whyte just behind. With Kyle Waddell’s emergence this season as the clear No. 3 in Scotland, Bryce could see the writing on the wall, and something he had off-handedly mentioned to a few curlers over the last year began to come into focus.

“It was actually Kerr [Drummond] who called me and pitched me on the idea after I was joking with him at the Red Deer event this past fall that we should do it,” Bryce explained. “He was exploring some options in Canada, and once some of those didn’t work out, we started talking more seriously about this.”

You can read the entire article by clicking HERE.

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you back here very soon with some answers to YOUR questions. And remember, if you have a question for me, drop it in the comments below!