I think your remark is very insightful, Little Nemo. We may very well have captured the essence of MPSIMS in this thread, which should be immortalized for the ages.
Archivist! Archivist! Please save this for posterity. This page is MPSIMS.
jti, I think it was your second guess. I think that happened today in about the 8th end of the Men’s also, although I wasn’t watching too closely. They stuck the stone back on the centerline, probably where it had been.
That answers a couple more questions I thought of today, like “what if they hit a stone with their brooms” and “Once a team is ahead by one or two, can’t they keep knocking out their opponents stones, and split the remaining ends?”
Some sweeping questions: If they sweep in front of only one half the stone, will that help the stone to curl? Are they allowed to sweep ice dust on the court into the path of the stone, to try and slow it down?
It is too clear, and so it is hard to see.
They should allow you to curl over-arm. That’ll be worth watching.
The award-winning http://porkypies.tripod.com
Lying - it’s not big and it’s not clever
I’m back! (was kept away by a combination of ISP trouble and the real world creeping in on my time)
Arnold - I’ve e-mailed my address, but I’m not sure if it went (the aforementioned troubles). Please send me an e-mail if you get it.
As for this thread being the epitome of MPSIMS, I disagree. How can anything that
a) discusses the great sport of curling, and
b) results in me getting Lindt chocolate,
ever be considered mundane and pointless?
Wally,
I think you must have been curling in one of those snooty eastern rinks like the Granite. Your sweeping yell would be perfectly acceptable in a good Prairie country rink, especially if delivered at 3 a.m. during an all-night bonspiel. The only thing you missed was an invocation of the deity’s son, preferably with an “H.”
SingleDad,
Darts? Darts is for Sassenachs!
ZenBeam,
I’ve never heard of anyone trying to sweep only half the rock; I think it would be too difficult and unpredictable. Plus, one of the purposes of sweeping is to keep the ice clean, as even a bristle from the brooms can interfere with the curl. If a rock picks up something, it might lose the curl entirely, or even start curling the other way. Either one would result in a missed shot.
(You may have noticed that sometimes the skip yells “Clean.” That means she/he wants the sweepers just to brush in front of the rock to keep the ice clean, but not hard enough to affect the speed of the rock.)
I think it would be illegal to put anything in front of the rock to slow it down. Plus, you run the same risk of interfering with the curl.
“there’s nae a dog alive can outrun a greased Scotsman” – Groundskeeper Willy
I was just wondering, what sort of standard unit of measurement is used to measure “oomph”?
I ask not what you can do for me, but what you can do for me right now.
Connor,
You’ve raised an issue that causes a great deal of debate in international curling circles.
The Scots, who invented the game, measure oomph in terms of Wullies, named after the famous curler Wullie MacCrimmon. (Immortalized in the play “The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon” by W.O. Mitchell). This unit of measurement is fairly subjective, but one hears of oomph being referred to as a “full Wullie,” a “half Wullie,” a “double Wullie,” and so on.
The French have proposed an alternative measurement, supposedly more scientific, based on the amount of oomph required to send a 20 kilogram rock 10 metres, and have petitioned to have it included in the metric system. They have named the unit after an early French curler, Pierre de Balai, and abbreviate the unit as PdB (similar to N for a Newton). Given the length of the sheet of ice in curling, the most convenient multiple for the PdB is in units of ten, so the term “decaPierre de Balais” (abbreviated daPdB under the metric system) is used: 5 daPdB, 10 daPdB, and so on.
The two competing units of oomph measurement have sparked considerable debate in the curling world, with the Wullie being attacked as hopelessly subjective, and the daPdB being challenged as ridiculously technical and hard to say in a a hurry. (Many observers feel that at bottom, the debate really is over the use of the names of the respective Scottish and French curlers - an unfortunate but all too common example of nationalism subverting the noble goals of sport)
The International Curling Federation has so far declined to adopt either measure of oomph, to avoid inflaming the controversy. As a result, the common Canadian terms of hack weight, draw weight and take-out weight have tended to be used by most curlers. Although these terms share the somewhat subjective nature of the Wully, they avoid the pitfalls of nationalism.
“there’s nae a dog alive can outrun a greased Scotsman” – Groundskeeper Willy
Wullie MacCrimmon, of course hails from the town of Crocus, Saskacthewan, which is based on Weyburn (where I am now) Saskatchewan.
Now THAT is Mundane and Pointless.
Keith
You want brilliance BEFORE I’ve had my coffee!!!
Wow. Ask a silly question, get a…well, you guys know better than me.
I ask not what you can do for me, but what you can do for me right now.
Good exposition on curling, but you missed guard weight. More common even than draw weight.
Personally, I like freight-train weight, like the men’s curling teams often throw, where the rock makes it from hog to hog in about 5 seconds…
Alex
mmmmm, chocolate…
Merci, Arnold!
Don’t tell me you only now received it! It was sent a long time ago.
it came last week - I forgot to thank you then.
Odie! Weyburn’s my home town! Wullie lived down the street! (Well, maybe not Wullie, but two or three of his closest buddies did.)
I’ll be back there in August to visit my mother, and buy you a beer. Mail me!
Well I’ll be damned. What did the USA postmark say? How long was that thing in the mail? I even paid extra postage so it wouldn’t take forever! :mad:
Hey, Odieman and rjk - can I jump in on this? I might be able to make it, depending on the date and the availability of the Beloved to be designated driver.
In fact, why not have a “Stubblejumper Doper-fest”? Anyone else out there who can make it to Weyburn in August?
Arnold,
Now thereby hangs a tale.
Unfortunately, there were renovations at the office, and in the confusion, the packaging etc. went into the shredder. So, I can’t tell you what the postmarks said, and if you included any personal note, it didn’t make it, nor the return address.
Only the chocolates survived the wreck - but thanks again.
You mean you didn’t get my love letter? :o
Hélas, non! votre lettre est perdue!
Odieman and jti - I’ll be there, and would be glad to meet both of you.
Mail me at the address in my profile, and we’ll see if we can put something together. I’ll be there around the weekend of Aug. 12 for the Wheatfest, so a Stubblejumper Doper-fest at the same time would be fun.
I’ll check my vacation schedule in the morning, and start a thread. There are more prairie Dopers out there!