Canada still a dominant force in international curling Rest of the world catching up is good for everyone By: Mike McIntyre Posted: 7:00 PM CST Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/02/2022 (1036 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jennifer Jones and her crew came home empty-handed. The mixed doubles duo of Rachel Homan and John Morris had nothing shiny to declare at Customs, either. Only Brad Gushue’s squad managed to snag a bronze souvenir out of Beijing.

A disappointing Winter Olympics, no doubt. But grounds for summits and symposiums and soul-searching about the sorry state of the sport around here? Hardly. Put down the pitchforks and the brooms, folks. Canadian curling continues to reign supreme, and that’s not about to change anytime soon.

The fact a few other countries can now give us a run for our money inside the rings is something to celebrate, not criticize. Competition is good. It keeps you on your toes and helps avoid complacency and cockiness. It’s not a bad thing to eat some humble pie once in a while.

But a little perspective, please, before we start trying to fix something that definitely isn’t broken.

Consider this: In the current World Curling Federation rankings, four of the top six men’s teams around the globe proudly wear the Maple Leaf. Canadians occupy seven of the top 10 spots, nine of the top 13, and 12 of the top 20. Scotland and Switzerland are the only nations to have more than one entry in the top 20, with two each.

It’s a similar success story on the women’s side. Manitoba’s Tracy Fleury is No 1, while provincial rivals Jones and Kerri Einarson are fifth and sixth. Canadians occupy four of the top 10 spots, and 10 of the top 20. Sweden and Korea are the only countries to have more than one entry in the top 20, with two each.

That is incredible depth and, dare I say, dominance. We have both quality and quantity the likes of which no one else comes close to matching. Not in curling. Not in any sport, really.

That doesn’t mean we should be resting on our laurels and not trying to find ways to improve, especially when it comes to the biggest stages. The results of the last two Olympics have sent strong messages to Canadian curlers that the rest of the world is gunning for them. Three events and just one medal 2022 despite all teams having winning round-robin records. Three events and one medal (mixed doubles gold by Morris and Manitoba’s Kaitlyn Lawes in 2018). It’s now been eight years and counting since the last clean sweep, when Jones and Brad Jacobs claimed gold in both events at Sochi 2014.

All of this should have our best and brightest minds looking for any edge that might improve our chances for Milan 2026, and to ensure they’re properly equipped and prepared to take on the challenges coming their way. We should be long past the stage of anyone sneaking up on us at these events. Gushue, for example, has been saying for years that Canada needs to hold its Olympic trials earlier than it does. It’s a valid point, and one he repeated last week.

Sportsnet recently ran a detailed feature in which they looked at the proverbial changing of the guard over the past decade. Ben Hebert, who was part of Kevin Martin’s gold-medal winning team at Vancouver 2010, said this of the competition that year: “Blindfolded, we were gonna be in the finals.”

Consider everyone’s eyes wide-open now.

“It’s been 10 years now at least that this has been a trend with the rest of the world getting so much better,” Chelsea Carey, the Winnipeg-born two-time Scotties champion who now skips a team out of Saskatchewan, said in the piece titled Rock And A Hard Place.

“They’re coming hard for us.”

Indeed they are. You have to go back to 2017 to find the last time the Brier winner went on to capture the World Championship, a three-year drought (there was no 2020 event due to COVID-19) the men will be looking to snap in Las Vegas in early April. The women’s cold streak runs back to 2018 (Jones won the Scotties, then the World), which three-time Scotties champions Team Einarson will have a chance to end next month in Prince George. There’s definite room for improvement on those fronts.

At the risk of sounding rather unpatriotic, that’s not necessarily a bad thing in my eyes.

We often hear about the importance of “growing the game,” and curling provides a perfect example of how this has occurred. Canada has played a leading role, not only in developing elite-level competitors close to home, but around the world as well. In some ways, I suppose, we’ve created a bit of a monster. But the sport is healthier than ever, which is good for everyone involved.

More events, such as the introduction of mixed doubles. More teams. More eyes on the product. More prize money, especially of the made-for-TV variety. Everyone wins. Just maybe not as many Canadians as we previously grew accustomed to.

Check out the immediate payoff after Great Britain’s women’s team captured gold in Beijing, and the men brought home silver.

“We’ve received hundreds of emails or clicks in the last few days where people have asked to try curling. It’s fantastic,” Aaron Forsyth, the manager of a major curling facility in Edinburgh, told The Guardian earlier this week.

Perfect.

Ironically, it’s the exact type of thing we’ve been hearing for years about the state of women’s hockey, where Canada and the United States remain miles ahead of everyone else. Once again, the same tired takes were trotted out by plenty of scribes in Beijing about how it shouldn’t even be an Olympic event given the all-too-predictable outcome. Canada and the U.S. lay waste to everyone else and meet for gold, while the other countries are left competing among themselves for bronze.

Ideally, women’s hockey will eventually get to where curling is now. Participants need more opportunities, not less, to play each other at the highest levels in order for that to happen. And if that day ever arrives, you can bet we’ll start hearing questions about why Canada winning it all is no longer the slam-dunk it once was. The same thing happened years ago in the men’s game, when the United States, Russia, Sweden and Finland started catching up.

The answer will be the same: It’s not us. It’s them. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg