Curling: tired of kitschy image, wishes to be considered the pinnacle of athleticism.
I thought that was going to be a Beaverton article until I hit the paywall…
Excerpt
Curling knows that it mainly has itself to blame. It’s heard the jokes: all those calls to “Hurry hard!” and “Sweep!” shouted at curlers as they walk down the street. For as long as anyone can remember, the sport has leaned into that and flaunted its reputation as a quirky pastime favoured by kitsch-loving fans, encouraging the mockery like a chubby kid who becomes the class clown as a pre-emptive defence against the ridicule of others.
In the past decade alone, marketing campaigns mounted by Curling Canada deployed a time-travelling, kilt-wearing Scotsman with a heavy accent and a fiery enthusiasm named Angus McStone; an oblivious sports TV anchor named Doug who does inept play-by-play and refers to a curling stone as a “giant puck-thing”; a woman in a flower shop goaded to vigorous sweeping by an excitable passerby; and a two-minute animated introduction to the sport for prospective fans that describes curling as [“the game with the ice, and the rocks, and the sweeping, and the yelling.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOk9SVzqHsk)
But, lately, all of that joking around was starting to wear on the athletes. More to the point, they and Curling Canada executives believed it was undermining the sport’s decades-long efforts to be regarded as a serious athletic pursuit. “Curlers have a bit of an inferiority complex,” said Nolan Thiessen, a three-time winner of the Brier and former world champion who became CEO of Curling Canada in January after serving as the organization’s executive director of marketing and fan experience. “People don’t consider them athletes.”
…“It’s the same thing as Michael Jordan at the free-throw line, or going up against a goalie at the end of a hockey game. These are big, epic sports moments that I think we had overlooked in some of the previous work…
…“We wanted to position it like a Nike, or any ad you would see with LeBron James, giving these athletes the reverence they deserve. You can’t just step up off the couch and become a world-champion curler.”… “If someone’s going to spend their money on a ticket and come to an event, they want to feel like it means something.”…
…Some sports have been more successful than others in courting the next generation, in part by focusing on the individual personalities who play the game. “We’ve seen the success with the NBA, going back to the late eighties, early nineties, when they shifted their focus to the athletes,” Gushue said. “And now, we see with Formula One, Drive to Survive, focusing on the drivers. Those are the people that viewers really want to be able to connect with.”
It’ll be hard to up the reputation and gravitas of a sport that, not infrequently, appears largely to be drunk people shouting at rocks. Just sayin’, could be an uphill battle!
…and until fairly recently, both smoking and drinking were not only permitted on the playing surface, but encouraged!
They tried to make it cool with the film “Men with Brooms”, but I can’t say I thought either the gesture or the film were successful. From 2002 - https://youtu.be/FMTqLEVygpg?si=BymYWFyrcd4sEuaA
And you can find very good Chinese restaurants in the most Francophone areas of Quebec (e.g. Thetford Mines). I should also mention the Montreal Chinese restaurants that are filled with non-Christians on Christmas Day (they are usually the only restaurants open).
Margaret Atwood has come out swinging against the Online Harms Bill.
…only, I find Beverley McLaughlin’s arguments both for and against the bill far more compelling.
It’s the Ides of March, and I can’t resist sharing this classic.
Wayne and Shuster’s “Rinse the Blood off my Toga”.
xhttps://youtu.be/rR_5h8CzRcI?si=m9PBe3FIRZIVDczW
Copy, paste, and take out the ‘x’ to view the clip - the board is being a jerk about pasting a YouTube link this morning.
Former mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi, announces he’s trying for the NDP leadership.
“I told him - Julie - don’t go!”
“I’ll have a martinus.”
“Don’t you mean a martini?”
“If I wanted a double, I’d have asked for one!”
Yeah, I don’t get that. Not Atwood’s attitude, but what the hell the bill is all about. According to a RWNJ board I follow, it’s
Yeah, no, that’s not how Canada operates under our Charter. “Innocent until proven guilty,” according to Charter s. 11(d). Where that poster got “an additional year in jail,” I have no idea. Probably made it up, because that’s what RWNJobbers do, but that’s not how Canadian law works.
That poster goes on to ask, “What is a hate crime in Canada?” That’s been well established by the jurisprudence: it’s not calling somebody a nasty name, it’s calling for the genocide or a group or race. Immediately; as in, and for example “Get your guns boys, we’re gonna round up all the Martians and shoot them. Right now.”
What kind of drugs are these right-wingers on?
Maybe it’s worth noting that these Americans I’m speaking of seem to be laypeople, not lawyers, and unschooled in the law of the United States or Canada. Especially the law of Canada. Just saying, is all.
I find there’s tremendous misunderstanding by many Americans about hate speech laws in Canada, and what they do and do not proscribe. They seem to feel that they’re the only ones with constitutionally protected speech. They’re not. We just don’t condone genocide or blatant calls for violence against a protected group.
Yeah. Otherwise, what are we to make of “Trudeau Supports Life in Prison for Speech.”? Seriously? Yet that’s how US right-wing nut jobs see it.
Trudeau is, like every other Canadian, constrained by the Charter. He can say what he likes, i.e. “They hold unacceptable views” during the truckers’ protest (and what, under Canadian law, are “unacceptable views?”), those were never defined, but he cannot tell us how to think.
“Life in prison for speech?” That’s not Canadian. That’s BS. I think what I want, I do as I please, and if Justin doesn’t like it, that’s too damn bad. Screw you, Justin!
This Hour has 22 Minutes ‘got’ Pierre Poilièvre in Halifax on Saint Patrick’s Day.
I’m very biased against him to begin with, but I think he comes off as a complete jerk with no sense of humour.
Not sure his base will see it that way, though…
Judge for yourselves - https://youtu.be/85FD0ogBGec?si=j4G2eRUP-GVm5_SI
So, how’s everybody else’s weather?
Cloudy and snowy here in southern Alberta. Today’s weather report said we had close to a foot of snow today. I needed a few things from the corner store a few blocks away, and I made it there and back on foot, through the deep snow (not everybody had time to shovel), but it convinced me to cancel my afternoon appointment across town on Friday. Because we’re expecting more snow tonight and tomorrow.
On Friday, I plan to get a reasonable amount of shovelling done–enough that the letter carrier can get to the mailbox, anyway–and clean off the car. I know that it’s March, and snow can be expected, but not this much!
Yes, judge for yourselves - https://youtube.com/shorts/V7K286YZabs?si=h2j0RfLqYH3mrLc1
It was 20 in Toronto last week, -7 today and we have a snowfall warning for up to 15cm. Of course, I have to go out of town today and have a 4 hour drive. Hopefully the worst of it will wait until I’m home.
This Hour Has 22 Minutes is still on TV? The mind boggles.
I missed the snowfall warming but I was aware of the weather because yesterday was recycling day. Fortunately my snowplow guy came by early and cleared the driveway and the windrow at the end of it that the street plows had left. We only got a couple of centimetres here but it would still have been a nuisance dragging the recycling cart through it. Weird late-season snowfall.