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The BalancePlus Slider was first used by players such as Kevin Martin and Ed Werenich, who raved about it. That led to a surge in demand for the slider with the hole in it, and Di Iorio’s invention has become the best-selling slider in the game.

QUITE AN ORDER

Three Canadian curlers have been honoured with the Order of Canada, the highest civilian honour in the country. They are:

Ken Watson (invested 1975)

Ron Northcott (invested 1976)

Ernie Richardson (invested 1978)

THE WRENCH VS. THE WENCH

It was billed as the Battle of the Sexes, and while there have been many male-versus-female curling games, none were as high profile as one that took place in 1986 between Marilyn Darte, at that time the reigning women’s world champion, and Ed Werenich, the 1983 world champ and one of the top curlers of the day. Darte (now Bodogh) appeared on a sports talk show and, feeling(now confident, issued the challenge to Werenich, which he accepted.

The match was held during the world championships, which were being contested in Toronto. In the lead-up to the game, the two—who never met a reporter they didn’t like—playfully tossed barbs back and forth. They appeared on national television and on the front page of national newspapers. A few notes about the infamous match:

• The game drew the largest crowd of the week at the world championships with a sold-out audience in excess of 7,000.

• Both teams came onto the ice by bursting through huge paper hearts—purple for the men, red for the women. Boxer Shawn O’Sullivan, then at the height of his career—led the way for the Werenich rink, while Bodogh’s team came out turning cartwheels.

• Werenich’s teammates came out wearing firefighters’ helmets with flashing lights and blaring sirens, while Werenich came through wearing a crown and cape. The cape was being carried by an extremely busty woman in a short skirt.

• Werenich’s usual third, Paul Savage, was replaced by Northern Ontario’s Rick Lang for the game. During the fifth-end break, Savage led a parade of women, dressed in aprons and cooks’ hats and banging pots and pans, around the ice surface.

• At one point, a CCA official appeared and jokingly called Darte third Kathy McEdwards for a hog line violation. Instead of removing the rock, however, he picked up McEdwards and carried her off the sheet.

• The contest was broadcast live on TSN and received a rating higher than any games from that week’s world championship.

• The men won the game 11-3, with the women only scoring in the last end.

• A rematch was held in 1996, during the world championships, but it never grabbed the attention of the initial contest.

STICKING TO CURLING

Curling has a great record of being accessible to all, with regular championships for blind, wheelchair, and deaf players. But one of the greatest inventions for keeping people in the game has been known simply as the Stick.

The Stick is a pole with an attachment at the end that fits over the handle of the rock. It allows a player to deliver a stone without having to bend down in the hack to do so, allowing plenty of players with back problems to continue at the game.

The History of the Stick

Several people claim to be the original inventor of the Stick, but most lean towards Preston Featherstone of Hamilton, Ontario, as the originator. Featherstone started curling in 1960 and for many years played alongside his friend Wilber House. The two often played as many as 25 bonspiels each winter, developing a long-lasting friendship.

In 1992, at the age of 82, House developed arthritis in his back, which left him unable to curl, a situation that led him—according to Featherstone—to become irritable and depressed.

In desperation, Featherstone decided he needed to find a way to get his friend back curling, and he got his idea from one of House’s other passions. When he wasn’t curling, House was a noted shuffleboard player in Tampa, Florida, routinely reaching the finals of tournaments where five hundred experienced players entered. Borrowing on that