Curling, Etcetera_ A Whole Bunch of Stuff About the Roaring Game - Bob Weeks [8]
• He wrote a best-selling book, Ken Watson on Curling, which listed the Seven C’s for Success: Compatibility, Concentration, Co-operation, Courage, Confidence, Competitiveness, and Consistency.
• In 1959, against the wishes of the Canadian (then Dominion) Curling Association, Watson set up matches between the Canadian champions, the Richardsons, and Willie Young and his Scottish champs. That tournament led eventually to the start of the World Curling Championship.
• For 20 years, Watson made his living as a high school teacher, but because of his notoriety, he went into the insurance business and was extremely successful.
• Watson won the overall title in the Manitoba Bonspiel, the largest event in the world, a remarkable six consecutive times, from 1942-47.
Charles Reid, Lyle Dyker, Grant Watson, and Ken Watson with their Brier trophy in 1949.
SWEEP, THEN PUSH
For many years, push brooms were used almost exclusively in Europe, while North American curlers played with corn brooms. But in the 1970s, the tide turned, and much of the impetus to switch was the result of play at one curling club. The Calgary Winter Club was one of the first facilities in Canada to offer up push brooms for club use, putting them into play in the late 1960s. Curlers at that popular rink found that the push brooms were more effective because they never left the ice surface, less taxing on the body, and far less messy. Not surprisingly, the brooms took off.
The peak of success may have been 1975, when three teams from the club won national championships—all sweeping with push brooms. The rinks won the Canadian mixed, Canadian junior boys, and the Canada Winter Games.
“They are made right in Calgary and I think they are comparable to the corn brooms in effectiveness. There are places where you can keep working with the push broom when you couldn’t with a corn broom. You don’t wear yourself out as much in a long playdown, and you don’t get arm weary,” said Les Rowland, who skipped his team to the 1975 national mixed—the first Canadian championship team to use push brooms.
WARMING UP IS RUBBISH
In most sports these days, warming up is par for the course. Players in baseball have batting practice, basketball players have a shoot-around, and hockey players skate circles prior to the puck drop. But in curling, warming up was not allowed until 1976. In major competitions such as national or world championships, even walking down the ice to the far end—as skips were required to do—had to be done at the side of the sheet. Walking down the middle of the ice before the first rock was thrown was tantamount to cheating. Sliding or sweeping on the sheet was also a breach of etiquette.
But in 1975 Warren Hansen, who was a member of the 1974 Canadian championship team, and Laurie Newton, a postgraduate student at the University of Alberta, prepared a report for the International Curling Federation (ICF, forerunner of the World Curling Federation) that showed sweeping to be “one of the most vigorous movements in sports.” As well, players could “reduce strains, sprains, muscle pulls and cramps” if they were permitted to slide before the contest.
Hansen made the presentation to the ICF, and while it was generally accepted, Robin Welsh, longtime secretary of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club, wasn’t in that camp. He stated: “I believe it is all a pile of rubbish, curling is a manly game.”
However, the majority was on Hansen’s side, and on the basis of the document, a warm-up period was permitted at the 1976 Silver Broom, the first of its kind. The warm-up did not, however, include throwing any rocks. That didn’t happen until 1978, when a 10-minute warm-up was allowed; however, the players were not permitted to practise on the sheet on which they were playing. Finally in 1980, each team was permitted 10 minutes to throw stones on their own sheet.
KNOW YOUR WIDTHS
Did you know that the hog line is actually thicker than the tee line or the back line? It’s true—the hog line