The full wrap on a week in Moose Jaw

MOOSE JAW, SASK.—This 2025 World Men’s Curling Championship was one of the most memorable.

First off, curling crowds that were definitely into the CURLING.

Bruce Mouat, skip of the winning Scotland team: “What I’ll remember about Moose Jaw is how much the fans were into the games. It gets you into it and is easy to embrace. Even when they cheer against you, it’s easy to embrace. This is what we curlers live for, is when our game is so appreciated.”

Let’s think of what Team Scotland accomplished? First up in the playoff round, they beat the seven-time and defending world champions from Sweden by an 8-7 score.

They then knocked off the No. 1-ranked Canadians skipped by Brad Jacobs 7-4 in the semifinals. That team resume included Olympic gold, world titles, Olympic bronze, Brier crowns etc… and they were playing on home ice to boot.

Then, finally, they defeated the #2 Swiss, skipped by Yannick Schwaller, in a nailbiter of a precision championship final by drawing the button to win 5-4.

Talk about snakebit… Switzerland are the winners of five world bronze medals in the last 10 years—their last title was in 1992— and now they have a well-earned silver.

Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillian Jr.—plus fifth Kyle Waddell and coach Michael Goodfellow—won their second world championship in three years in a thriller.

They had served notice of their intentions all season long, as they won a spectacular three Grand Slam titles in a row.

What are some take-homes from this 2025 world championship?

In no particular order:

• It’s now seven years in a row where Canada goes home without a gold. It’s a tie for the longest drought in our world men’s four-player history, after The Labonte Curse lasted seven years in the 1970s.

Panic? For the casual fan, probably. For folks who prefer the big-picture…that’s five silver medals and a bronze. Six podiums in seven championships plus a cancelled COVID-19 year.

Any other country would be throwing parties of celebration and lining up the sponsors. All this means is any entitlement we felt as Canadian curlers is vanishing and that’s a good thing. We have given the world a great sport to be proud of.

I recall Kevin Martin sending out warning shots almost 30 years ago, suggesting the world has caught up to us and we better embrace it. He saw it coming and experienced it firsthand, just as he experienced Moose Jaw firsthand as a member of World Curling Television’s The Curling Channel.

This means is our sport has grown up. 

Embrace it!

As reported earlier this past week, curling has become the most competitive team sport at the Olympics. At any given quadrennial Games any of the top 10 could medal in any of the three curling disciplines!

Again, we have given the world an amazing sport. For the record, Canada is pretty much always in the podium mix.

• Moose Jaw is a wonderful host city for major curling events. I hope they get many events like this.

The Temple Gardens Centre, a 4,500-seat arena. Close enough to an international airport (40 minutes away in Regina) with overflow hotel accommodations. 

Fans that are into it!

The only negative, for lack of a better word, is that Moose Jaw has curlers yet can only draw eight men’s teams to their 100-year-old bonspiel. And they have a beautiful eight-sheet curling rink that hosted the Original 16 Patch this week. 

That floored me. But it’s a sign of the times that most people, regardless of locale, are more inclined to be spectators than participants in any sport.

I honestly don’t know if this is a valid concern or not.

For what it’s worth, I’m aiming for my annual 75-plus games curling in the coming season. Call me Old School but I love bonspiels!

• TSN! 

As good as sports coverage can get. 

Canada’s The Sports Network has a great line up of commentators and analysts and not just in curling. When I spent three years in Colorado and Tennessee, I lost track of how many of my NFL friends were blown away by how over-the-top good the TSN CFL crews were. 

Not to forget the myriad of other sports covered.

Why do I know this? Pretty much every USA curling centre would be plugged into Canadian sports coverage for curling, so I didn’t miss much of my favourite Canadian sports teams during that period. Kudos to the whole TSN crew this past week.

My only angst with the coverage—and it’s minor—is a suggestion for the analysts to talk some 80% less about player shooting averages. 

The degree of difficulty just isn’t factored in. If a player is shooting only 35% after two draw shots, what does that really mean? A couple of draws later and they could be at 80%.

The Scottish men, as an example, never look at the field averages; only their own, and more often than not the variance can be 10% or more one way or the other.

We already know what the Swiss coach (and former lead for Norway’s famed Team Ulsrud) thinks about shooting stats, and that opinion is now 12 years old.

For what it’s worth—with Russ Howard and Joanne Courtney, and throw in Vic Rauter, TSN gives the world a master’s class in curling. 

I recall Silvana Tirinzoni, skip of the dominant Swiss women’s powerhouse team, telling me at that watching TSN on YouTube was her masterclass—this before she won four straight world championships and appeared in six straight world finals.

It wasn’t just the curling but the analysis.

• Some thoughts sourced from the Moose Jaw media bench. 

I think it was CBC’s Devin Heroux who blurted out a quote from the Estonian mixed doubles team, currently ranked No. 1 in the world. Estonia! Marie Kaldvee and Harri Lill.

I guess they had a mantra that went like this: “Don’t worry twice.” It must be an Estonian proverb. In other words, a missed shot is over and now, move on.

That one got a few “tell me that again” comments on the media bench. If it didn’t apply to curling, it seemed to apply to our day jobs and families … and curling.

Hammy McMillan Sr. received a text message from his son Hammy Jr. before Scotland’s playoff run, and junior got some fatherly advice from his 1999 world champion dad. Hammy Sr. suggested he “take it easy, don’t be greedy.” 

The context being the team was getting into some trouble in their losses with too many rocks in play, and taking perhaps ill-advised chances in the round robin.

This is the kind of thing Korey Dropkin’s Team USA will probably discuss after their disappointing four-win week.

Hammy Jr. was asking for a little outside perspective as senior has a mostly hands-off approach. In watching Scotland’s three-win playoff run, they were a bit of a different team in picking their spots.

A big shout out to Moose Jaw. The volunteers from this city and surrounding area couldn’t have been friendlier. It is, in fact, the friendly city.

The little touches—volunteers bringing us healthy-ish fruit and granola bars, and lots of coffee. The easy access to downtown and the number of fine restaurants. The player and coach access to our questions and probing, especially after a tough loss, or just tiredness and wanting to get to their hotels. The arena playing conditions and the care of all the ice technicians.

The knowledgeable curling fans who already came embracing one of their favourite sports. 

This includes the hundreds of excited elementary school kids who attended morning draws; they actually paid far more attention than I assumed they would. 

They cheered for their home or chosen country at the appropriate times ... so there had to be a little of the Saskatchewan granite DNA in them.

And this is the short list of favoured Moose Jaw memories.

What’s next?

The Mouat vs Homan “Battle of the Sexes” showdown on Monday in Toronto, followed immediately by the last Grand Slam tournament of the season.

Someone, somewhere, had an inkling that the two 2025 world champion teams should meet. 

If I was a betting soul—it’s a pick ’em. Enjoy.