On the PanCon and Mixed Doubles

Brad pops off!

(photo by Stephen Fisher/WCF)

Well, well, well. We don’t usually get such a fun and dramatic week in curling as we did this week, but a huge shout-out to Brad Gushue for giving us something to talk about. Before we get there, a few brief thoughts on the PanCon overall:

• Brad Gushue being clearly upset with how things shook down didn’t affect his ability to win the event. I think there may be a point in time where this event takes on more importance as more teams get good and Canada has to fight for one of those five places, but this event wasn’t it.

• Andrew Stopera has taken over the skipping duties for the Young Bucks, with Korey Dropkin continuing to throw last. I’m guessing this is a sweeping move, as Andrew skipped most of his career and Korey has more experience sweeping and is a beast physically as well. Some last-rock throwers also just manage the game better when they’re not also calling the game, and we’ll see if that’s the case for Korey. It’ll be interesting to see where this one goes for the Young Bucks.

• On the ladies side, it was yet another international loss for Team Einarson, who have yet to make the final in any Worlds or PanCon competition. Do we start to get concerned at any point? I can’t quite figure out what it is and why they can’t seem to get over the hump internationally when their Slam and Scotties record is unparalleled over the last few seasons. There’s no question the ladies’ field at the PanCon as currently constructed is harder than the men’s, and Kim and Fujisawa are both top 7 teams in the world ranks. You’d still think by this point we’d have seen Kerri find her way to a final.

• Speaking of Eun-Ji Gim, this PanCon win will see them jump over Rachel Homan into third place on the world rankings, and they really feel like a genuine contender at the Worlds this season, presuming Korea chooses them to go. After they lost the Korean final in 2022, they were shut out of the Worlds and PanCon last year, but winning this year should have them playing both. The addition of Min-ji Kim has been one of the biggest single-person tipping points we’ve seen in curling since John Morris joined Jim Cotter in 2013. She is absolutely one of the top thirds in the women’s game already only a couple years removed from juniors, and she’s catapulted Gim—who couldn’t break through the Garlic Girls dominance for a full five years—into being easily South Korea’s best team. They’re so fun to watch and the battle for South Korea into the coming Worlds and Olympics is gonna be great.

Alright, now for the controversy. I’m going to break down a few quotes here over a couple of news stories this week, and see if I can unpack what they really mean. I know that Brad Gushue is revealing a lot in these quotes, but I think he’s also saying a lot by what he leaves unsaid. Here’s the first set of quotes from the initial article about the unhappiness by CBC’s venerable curling reporter, Devin Heroux:

Obviously any time the word “embarrassment” is getting used, you pay attention. What Brad is really drilling down at here, in my opinion, is that the old way of qualifying for Worlds worked just fine for Canada (and most other PanCon nations), thank you very much. If you’re going to make the curlers show up for a separate event, that event has to be made worthwhile for the athletes and a world berth isn’t “worthwhile” when the same five teams qualified for the Worlds that would’ve done so in the old points-based format.

Ah yes, the thermal controversy. As a former player, this reeks of over-active officiating, and there’s just nothing more you can do to piss a player off. Curlers appreciate the jobs officials do, but the best officials remain in the background. I can remember playing at a BC provincials once and being told I couldn’t wear something because it didn’t match the rest of my team’s gear. The event was not being televised. There were maybe 100 people in the stands. It made no sense to go out of your way to do that as an official, and yet….wait a minute. This event was being held in BC. Wonder if it was the same official.

This might affect Canada more than most, but again, when you hold this event to try and get exposure and experience for the Guyanas and Mexicos of the curling world, you do have to take some care that the players want to be there. Ultimately, the WCF wants to run this event so that they can build the game in more countries. If you want to do that at the expense of regular World Championship countries like Canada/US/Japan/South Korea, you have to meet them more than halfway to do that. Brad Gushue doesn’t need to be at an event to help sell tickets so Guyana can play with a player who had literally never curled before this event. It has to be a give-and-take and the officiating has to be a part of that.

Again, the WCF is selling tickets to the event. The event sells better if Canada sends Brad Gushue and Kerri Einarson instead of Mike McEwen and Kate Cameron (no offence to either of those two great curlers). As a comedian, there’s nothing I hate more than being offered a gig where the pay is “exposure”. Brad doesn’t need it at this point, and while I’m sure he wants to represent Canada and feels proud to do so, it’s tough to balance that with being able to be home with family and tending to his businesses instead, which do make him money. It also compresses his schedule (they immediately head to Pictou from BC for the Slam) and Brad also knows that a good number of Canadian teams could win this event the same as he could.

And the TSN controversy. TSN’s explanation for not airing the event was that it was not broadcast quality. Having worked with streaming companies who provide linear streaming from curling clubs that could easily play on TV at 1080p, we know that curling clubs are not strictly the issue here. My guess? They had a different country lined up to host this event, they backed out, and Canada (and Kelowna) stepped up. Arena costs are expensive. If the event was meant to be in Asia, those travel costs for the federations stateside are also very expensive. This felt like a last-minute plan, which is why TSN was relying on the WCF feed, and probably why the WCF feed wasn’t good enough. Also, I did like the WCF explanation that other countries who were broadcasting it had no issues with the feed. Curling is presented differently in Canada than elsewhere, and the expectations are higher. Not good enough.

And of course, a nice nod by Brad to Jock Tyre and the Kelowna host committee. Jock is an amazing curling club manager and human being, and with the club being 12 sheets, it was uniquely positioned to hold this event. It’s just too bad everything else had to get in the way.

As I said on Twitter, you have to ask yourself if you’re the WCF when you’re adding this event to the calendar, is it viable to hold inside of a curling club? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, I don’t know. But I think as the world’s governing body of the sport, you probably shouldn’t commit to running a new event knowing that you might have to immediately hold it in adverse conditions. The Euros are in a club this year too, so the writing had to be on the wall just a little bit, right? If you knew the event was gonna have to be in a club, then maybe you run it like the World Bs or something, where the top 3 PanCon nations from the year before get a bye back to Worlds, and then the remainder duke it out for a spot. Then most of the time, it’s not as big of an event, the use of a club is justified, and if Canada or another larger curling nation ends up there, it is what it is. Do the crime, do the time, or whatever.

Gregory Strong from the Canadian Press also got in on the action, interviewing Gushue the same day Devin did, and he had a few more interesting quotes there:

The way things shook down this week has reminded me a little bit of Curling Canada’s decision to include all 3 territories at the national championships about a decade ago. The thought was that if we give those territories their own spot at the Brier/Scotties/juniors/etc, that would automatically grow the game in those places. As we’ve seen, it really hasn’t. Apart from Kerry Galusha, none of the territorial teams have been competitive, and sometimes, they don’t even field a team (or they send the single representative that signed up for provincials). It has left even Kerry Galusha herself wondering if it was a good idea, as she discussed with me last year on Way Inside. The only thing it’s really improved is the travel for the territories, as having to go across territories to win the spot to the nationals proved to be a bear.

The reality is, “growing the game” can’t be just about a single spot at a championship event. That has to be followed by grassroots programming, outreach, etc. I know a lot of the nations near the bottom of the A bracket and in the B bracket are working very hard to build curling programs for their nations, but there has to be more than this, and if the event is being held in a curling club every year with minimal exposure, I’m not sure it’s helping much either.

Curling Canada’s reaction to this: wuh oh. While the gap between the top 5 and the rest at the PanCon still remains large, Australia and New Zealand are coming, and it has to be a scary prospect for CC if a bunch of their top teams turn the event down. As it stands now, I don’t think Curling Canada would have to go too far down the list to find someone who would wear the Maple Leaf, but if this turns into an event where CC has to pay a team to convince them to go so we can get to the worlds…that could be a problem.

It’s going to be incredibly interesting to see where the event evolves from here. In the past, the WCF hasn’t been particularly receptive to Curling Canada’s concerns, often doing things in spite of Curling Canada, and not because of them. I don’t think the future of the event is in jeopardy because once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it’s very tough to stuff it back in. You’ve got the New Zealand men living in a nursing home to get better, you’ve got programs pouring a lot of money into improving because they now see a viable path to qualifying for worlds, and, quite frankly, the WCF wouldn’t want to admit they’re wrong. So this event will keep happening, it’ll just be a matter of finding somewhere that can host it, and probably ponying up the money for an arena, or an accelerated curling club experience that was obviously rushed this season.

And lastly, from The Curling News…

Quite simply, it’s one of the coolest quotes from a curler ever. And he’s right. Brad sells more tickets than any curler on earth right now, his legacy is completely cemented, and his complaints are valid. Sometimes holding the smoking gun is actually the exact right place to be.

Mixed Doubles

To switch gears, I’ve been calling some games for the Mixed Doubles Super Series lately, and I have to say, it’s a pretty damn cool product. I retired from curling before Mixed Doubles really hit the big time, and so I’ve always been a little bit skeptical of the game in general, because who loves change, right? But in a weird way, it does feel like it’s a bit on the cutting edge of where the game might be going.

Most games are 90 minutes or less. In a world where we see the WCF rolling out rules without consulting curlers specifically so they can cut 4-person game lengths down, this is a big plus. Another major complaint from curling fans right now? Blank ends. Mixed doubles doesn’t have those. Unless they happen by accident, but if they do, the hammer changes hands, which is another thing curling fans have been advocating for.

It also feels like the game is ripe for the direction I think curling should head, which is a more interactive “playing field” for fans. With attendance down (I’ll probably write about that soon too), we need to continue to think of ways to get fans in buildings, since the game is probably better as a viewing experience on TV. We have to provide a FAN experience that outweighs the VIEWING experience. I think it would be a lot easier to do that in mixed doubles, where the games are quicker, the players are a bit looser, and the overall vibe seems better suited to it. I’ve long been an advocate of moving fans onto the ice, and I think mixed doubles has a chance to be the place it starts.

Also, the Super Series is cool as hell. There was not really a mixed doubles tour and the crew behind the MDSS have really stepped up and created something unique and that really allows for the top mixed doubles teams to expand their game. It’s fun to see some of the top Canadian curlers try their hand against the international teams who are 100% focused on mixed doubles, and it’s also fun to see some of the Canadian teams go full-time themselves. Plus, the top team for a few weeks this season was from Estonia. The game is growing worldwide and it’s growing in the mixed doubles space and I’m converted after commentating just a single full tournament.

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