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That town is Istanbul, by the way. In Turkey.

SüpüRRR! (which is Swappp in Turkish, or SweePPP in English) is a new film boasting the tagline Hedef Vancouver, bir zahmet süpürüver, or Destination Vancouver, be a great sweeper!

The film offers a classic boy-meets-girl plotline, in which the hero falls for the heroine, whose father is an obsessed nationalist who requires that any future husband must represent Turkey on a national team. Any team, in any sport.

Screenwriter Selim Çiprut took up the story, in an interview with The Curling News.

“Our boy tries a lot of sports: boxing, sprinting, but he can’t become a national sportsman,” said the 37-year-old Çiprut. “And one day, he sees curling on Eurosport and he says… yes, that’s it! No one knows curling here, so we will become the Turkish National Curling Team!”

Cue Turkey’s leap into the world of curling. There is, naturally, a devilish rival to our hero, and on-ice mayhem must ensue, but you get the idea.

When Paul Gross first mentioned his curling movie to people in Los Angeles, he famously described their reaction: “It was as though I had farted. They really didn’t know where to look.”

Çiprut, who has a previous film writing credit under his belt plus two Turkish TV shows, was greeted with laughter. Good laughter.

“I talked with one of the best Turkish producers, he made my two movies,” said Çiprut. “I told him I have a great idea, and he laughed and said: ‘Who knows curling in Turkey?’

“I told him: everybody knows, but no one has played.”

Turkey’s real-life curling leap was made this past April, when the country became a provisional member of the World Curling Federation. The impetus for all this is the 2011 World University Games, or Universiade, which Turkey will be hosting.

Çiprut reports that the town of Izmit, located in Kocaeli province just outside of Istanbul, has built a dedicated curling facility to host the Universiade discipline. And his actors have become the first curlers in the country.

“The hall was built for curling, and it opened in May,” said Çiprut. “I never knew, I was shocked, surprised and glad to hear that.

“All the actors were taught for one week by a Turkish national coach, and they are the first licensed curling players in Turkey!”

Çiprut has created a SüpüRRR! Facebook group which boasts guerilla-marketing treatments of the film poster (above) appearing in various locations, including a magazine held by Hollywood starlet Scarlett Johanson.

“I am very excited, and waiting for this movie,” said Çiprut. “This film has had a lot of news in the press, and everybody is shocked about curling. Everybody is waiting for December 18. It will be awesome!”

Read more about the film in the upcoming issue of The Curling News, available in late October. Subscribe today!

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Considering the feature story written by world champion Jill Officer in the November 2008 issue of The Curling News, we shall assume you recall hearing about a new Canadian TV comedy series called Throwing Stones.

An exclusive online excerpt of that story follows… in a bit.

The show tells the tale of five women trying to stay afloat amidst the chaos of life: demanding children, high-maintenance husbands, mortgages that keep them awake at night, uninspiring jobs, and all the challenges that come from being a wife, a mother and more significantly, a woman.

And all is forgotten, all is left behind, when they meet weekly at the West Kildonan Curling Club in Winnipeg.

The show uses the principles of curling as a metaphor for life. Patti (played by Academy Award winner Patty Duke) believes that all the lessons, rules and wisdom you need in life, you can learn from curling. Every episode begins with Patti philosophizing about one aspect of curling. It is this principle of curling and its larger application to life that is explored in each episode.

Throwing Stones was an original pilot developed and produced for the CBC. We heard earlier this spring that CBC had turned down the show, due to both the economy and new programming guidelines. This, of course, totally sucks.

But it also means that the pilot will be airing on July 15 – this Wednesday – with very little publicity or promotion. As such, the show producers are asking curlers to tune in on July 15 and, if you like the show, send your feedback (ie. your righteous anger) directly to CBC via this webpage.

So do tune in. Meanwhile, here’s an excerpt or two from Jill Officer’s behind-the-scenes column back in November… which you would have received, along with the photo above (taken by Joey Isford) if you had subscribed to The Curling News …

Patti Duke, the Hail Mary and 21 bucks an hour

Standing on the ice pretending to talk to my pretend teammate, I felt a little ridiculous. My lips were moving, but no sounds were coming out. I also had more expression than when I’m really talking – and I think I’m generally pretty expressive.

This was my first experience as an actress – no wonder it’s called acting; you’re not really doing anything, at least for the “extras” on set, which is where I fit in. A curling-themed pilot for a CBC TV series was being shot on location at West Kildonan Curling Club in Winnipeg. The rink was turned into a film set in September when film producers took over the building, painted some touch-ups and set up shop for three days of shooting Throwing Stones – a series with a very Men with Brooms feel to it (ie. a little unrealistic).

The series stars Oscar winner and three-time Emmy Award winner Anna Marie “Patty” Duke. Well, she at least *edited to prevent spoilers* until she *edited to prevent spoilers* which I know my editor would want me to point out *edited to prevent spoilers* and was very similar to *edited to prevent spoilers* the Scotties in 2005 – and then *edited to prevent spoilers*.

Weeks before the shoot, an email circulated by a local casting company (and editor gk) was asking for female curlers between the ages of 20 and 60 to bring their skills to the set as background curlers. Given that the pay started at $21 an hour (overtime was more) I thought, hey, why not? That way I could throw a few rocks, see what this was all about and, of course, have something to write about for The Curling News.

The call time for us “skilled” workers was about 9:00am. I showed up to find a number of my fellow local competitors – Chelsea Carey, Kaleigh Strath, Cheri-Ann Loder, Jill Proctor – and many more. For some of the younger girls like Kaleigh, it was a chance to change their status as a starving student – for a couple of weeks anyway – and make a few hundred bucks in a day even though they had to skip class to do it. Can you blame them? Heck no!

As extras, even we had to go through wardrobe, make-up and hair. Wardrobe was a challenge. We were asked to bring clothing with no logos and we couldn’t bring anything black, white or red. That was a problem for me as it would be for many competitive curlers who have sponsor logos plastered all over their curling gear and the stuff that doesn’t have logos consists of the popular colours of… black, white or red.

I raided my closets of sweatshirts, curling clothes, etc, but I couldn’t find anything that fit the rules. The only logo that was approved was Asham, but even then my Asham sweatshirts were red and black. Ugh! I eventually had to raid mom’s closet where I found a plain pink sweatshirt that ended up being my wardrobe of choice by the pros.

After pretending to talk to someone, doing monotonous tasks in the background, faking yelling “hurry” while my pretend teammates avoided the huge lighting equipment that covered half of our sheet, playing cards in the downtime and then basically being on the ice for five hours straight not really doing anything – including never throwing a rock – it was time to call it a wrap for the day, some 14 hours later!

We think actors and other entertainers live the good life, but getting a taste of what it’s like to be on a film set has proven to me that it’s not all that easy. Granted we didn’t get the golden treatment, like our own trailer nor a bed to rest our head on, but having to “hang around” all day is, believe it or not, absolutely exhausting. By 11:00pm my legs were stiff, my back ached and the sound of “that’s a wrap” was enough to make me peel right out of there despite the discomfort I was feeling.

Imagine that, huh? I could write the headline for gk right now: “Elite athlete isn’t even in good enough shape to stand around for 14 hours.”

Really though, I would challenge any high-performance athlete – from any sport – to stand in the cold for hours on end, dressed for a regular curling game, but not doing any throwing or sweeping. Somehow I think anyone would feel the same way.

I wonder how Connie Laliberte fared: as the “consultant” helping out the production crew, she was there longer than anyone, but at least she had things to do… including setting up. And I think about that Men With Brooms flick, too… amazing to think that nearly a hundred of my fellow competitors went through something similar, some of them for multiple days. My “extra” sources tell me that for those who returned to filming over the next two days – I could not – also spent 12 to 14 hours on set… including one night which finally wrapped at 4:00am! OMG!

I was so exhausted after the first day I was actually thankful I didn’t return to the miming, standing around in the cold and passing time.

I was, however, thankful for the $350 cheque that arrived in the mail a few weeks later.

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Everybody’s favourite movie-star curler, Paul Gross, isn’t resting on his Passchendaele laurels. The man who once had a slide delivery more solid than that of many TCN readers has not one, but two new projects coming soon… and an award is headed his way this weekend.

CTV and ABC (in the U.S.) have both picked up “Eastwick”, a TV adaption of the 1987 film “The Witches of Eastwick”. Gross plays the part of The Devil, in a very juicy role made famous by none other than… Jack Nicholson.

Gross will also appear in the comedy western “Gunless”, as a nasty American gunfighter nicknamed The Montana Kid (photo above).

In addition, the Men With Brooms maven will receive the NBC Universal Canada Award of Distinction at this year’s 30th anniversary Banff World Television Festival, now underway in Calgary… where delegates will also have the opportunity to be “In conversation with Paul Gross”.

A preview of the famed festival can be found here and a Calgary Herald story summarizing all these Gross adventures can be found here.

And in a more hardcore curling vein…

• Bachelorette Jillian Harris told the media a few things about the “curling date”, from this one:

“I really love the curling date. Curling is – and I hate to say it because curlers are going to hate me – that quintessential, Canadian, nerdy sport. I find it really nostalgic. I did it a lot as a kid, hanging out in lounges. The guys really got into it.”

… to this one:

“This was such a nostalgic date for me. I remember curling bonspiels when I was just a kid — so much fun! To my delight … the guys loved it too!”

Nah, we don’t hate you Jill… after all, since the episode has turned out to be such a hit for tourism in Vancouver, we expect local curling clubs to have their voicemail systems jammed full with messages over the summer.

A note to the curious: Harris’ current hometown may be Vancouver but she’s really an Alberta gal, from Peace River, and that’s where her young curling memories come from …

• DID YOU KNOW: that curling columnist, editor and book writer Bob Weeks made an early appearance in this leadership convention video for Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff?

• CITY GOOD: PEI’s Charlottetown Curling Club was recently honoured at the Mayor’s Citizen and Recognition Awards night. As the citation reads, “Founded in 1887, the Charlottetown Curling Club has remained a source of recreation, entertainment and camaraderie for the City of Charlottetown and its surrounding communities for 122 years.” Boo-yah!

• CITY BAD: A big boo to the town of Cochrane, Alberta. City councillors have stomped all over the curling club’s request to add two sheets of ice to their facility …

• Luber’s Lounge has posted the tentative Manitoba Curling Tour schedule for the 2009-10 season …

• DID YOU KNOW II: that the Ontario Curling Association van in which ED Doug Bakes zips around the province each season is now for sale? Well, giddyap …

• Toronto’s 13th Annual East York Summerspiel gets underway tomorrow and finishes Saturday. The bonspiel theme is based on the movie Grease, and the club is heavily decorated and awaits the 36 teams that have entered. The curling starts on Friday night at 6:00pm and there will be a live band that night at the club …

• And finally, we were planning to reveal the incredibly bizarre curling posting from a blogger named Bliss, but Skip Cottage beat us to it. Here is Bob’s take on the eccentricity, which of course simply must lead you to click through and see it for yourself …

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Curling’s favourite movie star, Paul Gross, is back.

This time, the Canadian star of Due South and Slings and Arrows and, of course, Men With Brooms is now a WWI soldier, in a grandiose film with elements loosely based on stories told by Gross’ own grandfather. Passchendaele has some MWB echoes, too: instead of the challenges of slippery ice, the filmmaker created a slippery, multi-acre mudbowl on a reserve near Calgary. And PG also repeated his multitasking effort in this new film, once again getting his hands filthy as director, star, co-writer, co-producer, editing watchdog, finance-wrangler, and so on.

TCN honcho George Karrys was recently quoted on Gross’ surprisingly good curling skill-set, while film critic Jay Stone – who accompanied the MWB cast on that wild week-long cross-Canada press tour seven years ago – has a write-up here.

The film kicked off the reknowned Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last night; info via the Hollywood Reporter and U.S. Daily while the red-carpet photo of Gross (above) comes from Empire Movies.

Meanwhile…

• The curling season is definitely in full swing. Switzerland’s Baden Masters is underway as of this morning, but worries over rising costs of air travel and how this may affect the curling season are already coming home to roost.

Three Canadian teams, including Randy Ferbey, pulled out of the Masters citing cost factors, and one wonders just how difficult a season this will be for many Tour events, in any country.

For example, will world champ Jennifer Jones maintain her committment to fly three hours within Canada and then across the Atlantic ocean to compete in a three-day event in Scotland?

Of course, we hope so. In fact, given that Team Canada is arguably one of the top-funded squads around and has no local playdowns to contest in January, we anticipate so. But we worry nontheless, and if not about the Glynhill, other events across the curling landscape …

• The CUETS Schmirler Classic has a new date this year – this month in fact – and it seems to have paid off …

• DID YOU KNOW: that an access road in Harbour Grace, Newfoundland has a new name? It has been officially renamed “Jamie’s Way” in honour of Jamie Korab, member of Team Gushue, the 2006 Olympic Champions in men’s curling. An August 18 lunchtime doodah saw the local mayor and provincial transportation minister join Korab for the induction …

• DID YOU KNOW II: that Korab’s skip, Brad Gushue, was named by the Telegraph as Newfoundland’s second-greatest athlete of all time… ?

• Seems there may be some potential hardware problems in Iqualuit, leading into this fall’s Canadian Mixed …

• Cynthtic recently gave us an inside peek at BC’s recent Four Foot Curling Camp …

• Here’s a fun video report on the Bay Area CC’s Crushspiel …

• Speaking of fun videos, remember Raj Binder at the 2005 Canadian Olympic Trials? Oh yes, it is a classic …

• Manitoba’s latest Sports Hall of Fame inductions include the 1928-29 Brier champion Gordon Hudson squad, plus curling builders Stan Oleson and Reid Lumbard …

• Canadian Junior men’s skip William Dion and many other amateur athletes are up for a Quebec award …

• Former Gushuer Chris Schille stars at The Curling Show …

• Glenn Howard is vowing to support his friend and ex-teammate Wayne Middaugh in his upcoming tax fight with the Canadian government …

• Edmonton’s Mark Johnson is off the United States …

• Manitoba curling has unveiled its new administrators, here and here …

• Globetrotting curling coach Dick Henderson is back on the ice, and in his hometown …

• How’s this for a celebrity curling team? Yourself and none other than Kerry Burtnyk, Jeff Stoughton and Vic Peters?

• Speaking of, Peters will not attempt to defend his provincial Seniors title; seems he’s having too much fun beating up on younger competitors …

• And finally, we’ve told you about the Australian men’s team and their effective use of Microsoft Office Live software. The story is out again, courtesy of MarketWatch, but the latest is this muy cool video showing them using the tool in action …

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While various rock acts have been known to play at large curling events – say hello Randy Bachman, Ashley MacIsaac, David Wilcox and Danko Jones – Canadian folk-rockers The Weakerthans are the latest musical act to follow in the footsteps of Hammerfall, Gob, The Tragically Hip and The Constantines in crafting real curling themes into their music.

The new song Tournament of Hearts – which can be heard on the band’s MySpace page – is hard core curling, with its references to “championship banners going yellow on the wall” and “peeling off the (beer) label as they peel the corner guard.” It is, however, a love song… just as Men With Brooms is really a love story.

Frontman John K. Samson – throwing a rock with a cool hat above – speaks about curling in this video mobisode, and in fact quotes from a legendary curling book (anyone recognize the cover? We do).

There are also stories available from CP and Canuck music mag Exclaim!, while our good friends at Chart have a mostly negative CD review here.

Will the 2008 Tim Hortons Brier committee draft these proud Winnipeggers into playing a gig at the Keith’s Patch in March?

• Police have already arrested three people following yesterday afternoon’s suspected arson job on the Windsor Curling Club …

• Yorkton’s popular stop on the Asham World Curling Tour has been cancelled for 2007.

“On behalf of the Yorkton Curling Club and the Curling Classic committee, we unfortunately have to announce a one year leave of absence from the PharmaChoice Curling Classic for 2007 due to team scheduling conflicts and other extenuating circumstances that are beyond our control,” committee chair and 1999 Brier semi-finalist Gerald Shymko told the Yorkton This Week & Enterprise.

“We will be working hard to alleviate any conflicts for 2008 and will be putting our efforts into making next year’s spiel bigger and better than ever.”

The good news is while the eight-year event will be on hiatus, chief sponsor PharmaChoice Western will continue supporting the local curling club.

“We’re not just laying down and letting this go,” Shymko added.

“We’re hoping the scheduling works better where the teams can travel and come back to Yorkton next year. And, we’ll be going all out to get the spiel back into this community.”

• Speaking of Men With Brooms, here’s what writer/actor/director Paul Gross is up to these days …

• Got a suggestion for a podcast guest on The Curling Show? Just mosey on over to the Zone and name your name …

• Joe Pavia spoke with KMart over the weekend …

• Finally, the European Mixed Championships are underway in the Spanish city of Madrid, and local voices are are starting to noice (here and also here) … plus, Bob Cowan is actually there …

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