The Brier - A Curling Rant
14/03/2009 18:57
Don’t get me wrong
folks, there is a lot to like about this Brier,
not the least of which is some of the best
curling you will ever see. And I love the game.
Having ceded that though, there is lots that is wrong as well.
Take for example that brutally awful commercial for Capitol One credit cards. You know the one, where a guy is walking down a sheet of ice when he refers to other cards as being “hard” to use and instead of actually saying the word, he is muted and we hear Jennifer Jones hollering “hard” as she calls the sweeping (wink, wink) in a real game.
The guy then goes on to show how “easy” it is to use the card and again he never says the word, rather we cut back to Jennifer in the same game calling “easy” to the sweepers.
Gimme a break folks, but when in hell have you ever head a skip call “easy” to sweepers? Never, that’s when. I’d buy “whoa” or “right off” of even “no”, but easy? Never. That’s an invention of some air head in an ad agency who couldn’t come up with a real commercial.
One thing it has done though, is turn me off Capitol One for good. It’s not in my wallet and never will be. Which leads me to the question, “Why does Capitol One want only male customers? They never refer to a purse, just a wallet.
Then there is the new jargon in curling by the commentators. They go on and on about a “corner guard”. Just what the hell is a corner guard on a circular house? Last I checked there were no corners in a circle. I assume they are referring to the left or right guards in front of the house, but what do I know?
And finally, whatever
happened to curling etiquette? The rules of
curling as I learned then were that the third
on each rink agreed on the scoring and marked
the score board.
In today’s Brier games, they don’t even wait for the last rock to stop in the house before they start kicking them off to the end of the sheet. We were taught to always allow the final rock to come to a complete stop before we agreed on the score and moved them off. Is time now such a factor that they remove then before the TV audience can even see their final resting spot?
*End rant*
READER RESPONSE:
Don,
I read your Brier editorial with a great deal of interest.
While I agree with much of what you say, as long as I have ever curled (the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s) I have been familiar with the term “corner guard.”
By definition from a number of sources - “Corner Guard - A type of guard that is off to the side of the house. Usually, employed when a team has the hammer and needs to score multiple points.” A corner guard is typically a guard which is in front of the house and does not cover the four foot circles, but is more off to the side of the sheet and guards rocks that would be in the eight foot or twelve foot circles.
In fact, if memory serves me correctly, I believe St. Albert’s own “Friendly Giant,” the late Hec Gervais invented the corner guard as a method of generating multiple points when he had the hammer.
Cheers,
Jim Starko
St. Albert
SINC SAYS:
I don't care when it was invented, or where. I still say there are no corners in a circle.
