Curling, Etcetera_ A Whole Bunch of Stuff About the Roaring Game - Bob Weeks [9]
ALL ABOARD
In the 1940s and ’50s, before air travel, a dedicated train travelled across the country, picking up Brier competitors en route to the host site. It was known as the Brier Special and allowed the competitors to get to know each other prior to the competition. The event sponsor, Macdonald Tobacco, added a bar car that became the focal point of the ride. However, the atmosphere often took its toll on the players.
“By the time I got off the train in Moncton,” said Edmonton’s Matt Baldwin of his trip to the 1956 championship, “I was shaking. We’d been drinking for five straight days.”
WHAT A HACK
A hack may be something many curlers take for granted, but in 1989, it underwent a revolution thanks to a Quebec curler. Marco Ferraro was a competitive curler who always had difficulty with hacks wherever he played. He felt they were inconsistent, didn’t provide a good hold for the foot, and often got in the way of the delivery. “It just became a case of put up or shut up,” he said. The old-style hacks were sunk into the ice and were not ergonomically designed with the foot in mind.
The Marco Hack
Ferraro’s first stop was Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, where he spent time examining the runners’ starting blocks.
“I figured that an athlete going for a gold medal isn’t going to leave anything to chance. He’s only going to put his foot in something that’s perfect,” Ferraro noted.
He took that information to a mathematician who provided information on the exact angles of the foot during the delivery and then produced some prototypes. Those were tested by several top-ranked curlers, who made suggestions, and the final product was brought to market. These days, just about anywhere in the world there’s a curling rink, you’ll find one of these hacks, which are emblazoned with the name MARCO across the top.
THE JUBILEE STONE
Before standardization of stones, curling was played with implements of varying shapes, sizes, and weights. In fact, in some parts of Scotland, bigger stones were a sign of strength of the thrower. Players brought their own rocks to games, and the rocks were often plucked from rivers, which had worn them smooth. One of the most famous is known as the Jubilee Stone, which weighed in at a massive 53 kilograms (117 pounds). It was given its name when it was presented to the Royal Caledonian Curling Club at the governing body’s Jubilee Meeting in 1888. It is on display at the club’s headquarters in Edinburgh, Scotland.
PAPER GRANITE
George Plimpton made a career out of trying various sports at the top level and then writing about it from the viewpoint of an amateur. His most famous book in this genre was probably Paper Lion, in which he recounted his experiences playing quarterback for the Detroit Lions at the team’s training camp. While his most notable works have been about sports such as football, baseball (he pitched to the American League team at the All-Star Game), and boxing (he sparred with Archie Moore), he once tried his hand at curling. Plimpton attended the 1976 Super Draw Curling Bonspiel. This event was a lottery that allowed winners to travel, all expenses paid, to Vernon, British Columbia, where they competed in a bonspiel playing for high-profile skips. Prior to the event, he admitted that the only brooms he had seen were in closets. However, he went out and skipped a team in three games, including his first with the members of Hec Gervais’ 1974 Canadian championship team, while Gervais skipped three members of the media. Plimpton lost, and after he missed a takeout attempt during the contest he commented: “[The stone] must have lost interest.”
CURLING FIGHTS
Curling is thought to be a game played by gentlemen and women, and in most cases, it is. However, there has been the occasion where the decorum has slipped and, just as in Canada’s other great winter ice sport, fights have broken out. Here are a few incidents of fisticuffs