Curling Book Retro Revival

A few days ago, our contributing writer and podcaster Coach Steph posed a question to her online followers:

While the question probably relates to her status as a curling fitness expert, some of the broader answers can be found in a famous curling book that has surprisingly reappeared after decades out of print.

A handful of mint edition copies of the 1986 book Curling to Win have appeared for sale on the Curling Cares website, the portal which sells curling merchandise that benefits charities including the annual Curling Cares Fundraising Calendar.

Back in the late 1980s and early 90s, Curling to Win was the curling guidebook. The softcover tome was written by Ed Lukowich, Al Hackner and Rick Lang and featured contributions from Ed Werenich and Marilyn Darte (now Bodogh).

The book was the second in a trilogy primarily authored by Lukowich.

The 1986 world champion skip first wrote The Curling Book with Rick Folk and Paul Gowsell in 1981. It was published by Western Producer Prairie Books, whose publications were produced and manufactured “in the middle of western Canada by a group of prairie farmers who were members of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.”

What could possibly be more representative of Canadian curling than that?

Five years later, Lukowich’s Brier and world titles paved the way for his second book, Curling to Win, arguably the most popular of the three books. With a foreword written by the legendary Hec Gervais, Curling to Win is today a fascinating look back at a sport that was coming to grips with a new rule—the Free Guard Zone—designed to increase offense.

Power Curling proved to be Fast Eddie’s final book in the how-to series. It was published in 1993. The latter two books were products of McGraw Hill Ryerson, now a specialized education publisher.

What are some of Curling to Win’s high points?

Coach Steph would be curious to see segments titled A Conditioning Program, How To Train and Four Elements of Sweeping. Many others would be interested in chapters such as How to get the Best out of Four Team Players, Coping with Pressure, Mental Readiness, Forgetting Your Release (?) and the exclusive Werenich offering How to Win the Brier.

Lukowich also wrote a coffee table book, The Joy of Curling: A Celebration with U.S. legend Bud Somerville and Norway’s Eigil Ramsfjell. He also released a 60-minute instructional curling video, co-founded the World Curling Tour and the TSN Skins Game, served as a colour analyst for Sportsnet and was also USA Curling’s Athlete Development Director.

Recently, Lukowich’s writing has focused on science and science fiction. The Trillionist novel was published in 2013 under the name Sagan Jeffries, and Lukowich’s series on cosmology theory now numbers six volumes.

Curling to Win isn’t the only retro curling book available on the Curling Cares site.

Another out-of-print title is The Roaring Game, A Sweeping Saga of Curling by Doug Clark. The 2008 Key Porter book was Clark’s exploration of how curling culture has morphed into pop culture “to have a surprisingly broad impact on our lives and lifestyles.” And this was published two years before the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

A third book sold out just days after a social media posting announced its presence. Burned By The Rock, with a revised and expanded edition published in 1992, sees former Toronto Sun sportswriter Jean Sonmor spending time with 11 notable men’s skips of the era—including Lukowich, Werenich, Hackner, Gowsell and Folk—and tells their stories, both of success and failure, triumph and tragedy.

The presence of a chapter on New Brunswick skip Jim Sullivan is particularly poignant. Sullivan died tragically in 2011 at the age of 43.