Stupidly thinking it’s the right thing to do
We are into the heart of the TV curling season. It’s the Brier, the pinnacle of men’s four-player curling in Canada.
I absolutely love the Brier, which remains unbroken. It is still the biggest curling event in the world.
Like Canada’s women’s team championship, it provides a perfect stage for drama and tension. The pressure of large crowds and TV audiences makes every shot feel more intense.
The Slams have not managed to create the same level of intensity. They do not stir the same emotions.
You can argue the Brier has lost some lustre, given the top-ranked teams in the world now hail from Italy, Scotland, Sweden and Switzerland.
But the Brier is still the Brier. For Canadian curlers, it is the Masters.
Like the Masters, it has a Jim Nantz in Vic Rauter, who narrates the stories and adds some needed poetry. It has its pantheon of great moments from years past. It has an old-looking trophy carried out by Mounties. It has bagpipes, and moose calls, and Bluenoser fans dressed for sailing.
Despite the challenges of Broomgate—both the latest and the original version—of the Slams, of the Olympics, of the boycott years, the Brier has remained. You still know what it means to the players.
After a week of watching the absolute dominance of Rachel Homan at the Scotties, it will be interesting to see how men’s curling fares this week on the national stage.
This Brier definitely has a different feel than in years past. I know we often speak of a changing of the guard in sports, but I think this week will serve as a very clear beacon on the evolution of the men’s game in Canada.
The contrast with the Scotties will be evident. Rachel Homan is by all evidence the best team in the world right now. The next two or three best women’s fours teams are not Canadian, but there are many teams still vying to get there and some are not far behind.
The men’s game is quite different. This year has seen a ridiculous amount of dramatic soap opera-esque team changes in Canada.
As of today, Matt Dunstone is No. 1 in Canada and he fired his third less than three months ago.
The defending champ, Brad Gushue, is now playing with Brendan Bottcher in what appears to be a marriage of convenience which has not yet yielded the results they have hoped for.
Mike McEwen is likely the top-ranked team that has not had any turmoil this season.
Brad Jacobs is likely the favourite, but even his team is still less than a year old—although the back-end relationship with Marc Kennedy goes back a few years.
The reality is Canadian men’s curling has never been more wide-open. The big names have shown signs of performing past their prime, and seem to be desperately clinging to the false hope of team change to somehow make up for the fact that the rest of the world is now better than us at curling.
Shiny Penny Syndrome
I think a sad fact is that as humans we are pre-programmed to overvalue all things new and shiny. I see it in the office, I see it in politics and I definitely see it in curling.
The lure of switching players as a quick fix is always appealing, until you realize that real growth, team building and progress takes time. And sometimes progress is not always linear. But in a world that evaluates results RIGHT NOW, and undervalues investing for the long term, teams will continue to make short term fixes in hope of the quick win.
We all love the shiny penny, but sadly it is still only worth one cent.
I think this is the biggest challenge in Canadian curling right now—mostly on the men’s side, but also in the women’s game, too. We now have teams that aren’t willing to build something for three to four years down the road; forget about five or six years.
You need to win right now!
Short-term thinking will continue to plague Canadian curling, while the top international teams make relatively few changes to their lineups and stick together for years.
I’m not saying teams should never break up. All teams have a shelf life. But to think that you can swap in a player and find some instant magic is a false hope.
The sad part is that for one team, it will likely work this week—and we will continue to stupidly think it’s the right thing to do.