The Meridian Canadian Open Grand Slam of Curling event just completed in Yorkton once again brought world class athletes to our city.
Having spent more than a quarter of a century here, and having been involved in news coverage the entire time, I can say it is rare for Yorkton to host events with an international element.
Yet here were the likes of the Niklas Edin rink from Sweden, Sven Adelboden and Binia Feltscher of Switzerland, David Murdoch from Scotland, Eunjung Kim of Korea and Anna Sidorova of Russia.
Add in some of the best rinks from across Canada, and this was an elite event in curling by any standard.
But I want to look beyond the local event a bit, although I will say fans appreciated the week’s curling, and the event certainly was good PR for the city in terms of exposure.
It is too bad that it is not being looked at as an annual event. It will move next year, and one is left thinking it may be an event a broader community effort might have latched onto and kept in our city.
And that we are left to ponder whether the community should have found a way to keep the event here, speaks about just how far curling has grown on the past decade or so.
Curling has always been a sport of interest in Canada, and certainly here in Saskatchewan.
Our love affair quite likely started with the Richardson team.
The Richardsons — Ernie at skip, brother Garnet (Sam) at second, and cousins Arnold and Wes playing third and lead respectively did what no other curler has, won four Brier and world titles, a feat Richardson and his team accomplished more than 40 years ago, the first in 1959.
Names such as Rick Folk and Sandra Schmirler followed. In Schmirler’s case she won three Canadian
Curling Championships (Scotties Tournament of Hearts) and three World Curling Championships.
But our interest in curling was not widely shared back in the time of these curlers.
To the credit of the sport’s governing body there were changes made to the game, and progress made to raise the status of the game which really took curling to a new level.
The big rule change was to establish the free guard zone, a rule which has evolved the game immensely in terms of adding strategy and fan interest.
The free guard zone is the area between the hog line and the tee line, excluding the house. Interpretation: A stone which comes to rest biting or in front of the hog line after making contact with a stone in the free guard zone is considered to be in the free guard zone. A stone which comes to rest outside the house but biting the tee line is not considered to be in the free guard zone, detailed www.parrysoundcurlingclub.ca
Any stationary stone(s) belonging to the opposition that is located in the free guard zone shall not be moved to an out-of-play position by the delivering team prior to the delivery of the fifth stone of the end.
The rule change was dramatic, and some purest balked at the idea, as it took the tried and true strategy of hit and roll and play for the blank end largely off the table.
But without the major change curling would not hold the interest it does today.
The other significant step was curling being added to the Olympics as a full medal sport in 1998.
The admission to the Olympics raised the international profile of the sport and brought countries such as Korea, Russia and China onto the international scene.
With a more dramatic game based on the rule change, and a greater international profile, curling became a good fit for an increasingly multi-channel world in terms of sports coverage.
All the new channels needed content, and curling was a relatively low-cost option in terms of filming events.
And viola, the sport of curling came of age.
While there might actually be fewer curlers in Canada today, the small town rinks disappearing just like rural grain elevators, hospitals and schools, there are a new generation of fans drawn to the sport by its regular appearance on television.
Television of course is a key to sport exposure.
You can argue the validity of darts, bull riding and even poker as sports, but in each case they have seen growth largely because television has grabbed hold of events as a way to fill the time slots in an ever expanding universe of channels.
