Brier Psychology From Section 211

REGINA—Role players and support role people. Our sport has many. Coaches, sports psychologists, physical therapists, parents or mentors are on site or a video call away.

I finished two baseball books over a southern vacation. The Book of Joe: Trying Not to Suck at Baseball and Life, by longtime MLB manager Jon Maddon. The other was The Tao of the Backup Catcher by Tim Brown and Erik Kratz.

The bulk of baseball position players who become managers are mostly catchers, as are so many TV analysts. This is similar to goalies in hockey.

Have you ever paid attention to how many Brier or Scotties players were excellent baseball or softball players?

Gerald Shymko of Saskatchewan was a semipro fastball pitcher. Olympian Shannon Kleibrink. Matt Dunstone, just deposed from the Brier, has been on Manitoba championship teams and still umpires in the off-season. Diane Dezura (more in a bit). The Wilson brothers both represented Saskatchewan in fastball as well as winning Saskatchewan’s last Brier and world men’s title.

These books got me thinking of curling and the Brier, along with the Scotties. Curling is a sport anyone reading this piece places as a high priority. I assume we’d all like to have had the dream come true of playing in a Scotties or Brier, or similar championship for those outside Canada. But we can stay in the sport as a fan, volunteer (talk about tireless hours), maybe a coach or a fifth, an official, or even a scribe.

Even these high-level athletes have a role. Not everyone playing in the Brandt Centre this past week could play all four positions. Obviously, some could.

Are all players wired to handle the tee-line? Often times the third is the best overall shooter. The skip may just have ice in their veins or has uncanny tee-line weight. Seconds “traditionally” are hit people and leads can draw at a 90-95% rate.

And, as we know, its not just shotmaking. World class brushers are a must. Having chemistry between teammates brings morale and confidence.

My favourite line on that one came from Randy Ferbey. I once asked him, what were some of the things he learned from his Pat Ryan days?

First off, he said “We had so much confidence in Pat. But I also learned to be a good liar. I tried to make him feel like he could make any shot in the world, even when I could tell that belief may have wavered a tad. And Pat would believe us. And let’s be honest, he would make most of those shots.”

The baseball books I consumed both emphasized the role of the role player. Maddon began to realize he wasn’t MLB material, but he loved the game. He was encouraged to scout, coach, then manage. He was a curse breaker (if you are a Cubs fan).

The Sandman, Mariano Rivera, may be classic role player who was a first ballot Hall of Famer. A ninth-inning closer who used his cutter 86% of the time over 19 seasons. Why? ’Cuz it worked. He was also an amazing fielding pitcher, accumulating only six errors in his career. I had to double check that one.

This comparison made me think of one of the best leads in our game, now approaching a couple of decades.

Ben Hebert delivers around 90% of his draw shots with his outturn and is once again an all-star at this Brier. Other major gifts he brings to a team is world-class brushing and a sense of a rock’s weight.

He’ll be in the Curling Hall of Fame. Is Ben curling’s Sandman?

A big curling announcement came Friday in between Brier draws; Moose Jaw, Sask. is getting next years world men’s curling championship.

The city has hosted many national and international curling spectacles including the upcoming Canadian wheelchair championship (for the second straight year).

One of my favourite Americans in curling lore won his world junior title in Moose Jaw.

Don Barcome still lives in one of Saskatchewan’s border states—North Dakota. Don’t be surprised to see Don show up in Moose Jaw. He often still talks about his team’s amazing run to gold and his soft spot for Moose Jaw.

That town will be hospitable, to put it lightly. It’s only 70 kms from Regina and a couple hours from Saskatoon … and 777kms from Don Barcome’s farm.

Moose Jaw has a fairly new arena right downtown with easy access to a string of better-than-average eating establishments. And if players are trying to hide away after an off game, they can always visit the famous or infamous tunnels that Al Capone built under the downtown core.

Moose Jaw is now known as the Canada’s Most Notorious City, which celebrates the nickname from the Capone era as The Little Chicago.

The Brier playoffs are nearly complete. It’s Super Sunday.

Many have been writing and broadcasting how this year’s Brier saw its fair share of upsets and underdogs. The Koe brothers, of course, shifted positions in the standings. The Territories, skipped by Don Twa and his Whitehorse team, did become a threat in their very first Brier back in 1975—before the playoff format become standard—and finished in the top three, long before the Territories’ split into three regions.

Northern Ontario and PEI became crowd favourites. Their late heartbreak round robin losses would have really thrown a wrench into those who bet on this game.

The other five who qualified were considered strong contenders to win it all, with the final three the strongest candidates of all.

Back to the beginning. Why so many catchers or goalies becoming coaches, or analysts?

Diane Dezura (nee Nelson) of Kelley Law’s STOH and Olympic teams put it best, as she also represented B.C .as a catcher.

“I’m not surprised, because we see the game from a different vantage point,” said Diane. “We see the whole game unfold like a hockey goalie. And we have to understand the role of each player as we’re usually are the ones who run the infield, and are aware of the outfielders and where they should be in certain situations. We study the opposition more than most players on the field. Really, you’re the right arm of the team’s manager.

“This has aided my curling career a ton. I’m much more aware of my teammates and the roles they play. I’m more aware of the psyche of teammates and how to create healthy morale. I often felt like a psychologist encouraging our pitchers. You appreciate the role of everybody on the team and that can go right through the coaching staff and administration.”

Maybe Diane is the female Crash Davis (from Bull Durham). Diane and her husband Grant, a consistent curler in the B.C. provincials, are on the way to finishing up their NY Yankees bucket list trip; they’re closing in on seeing them play in 20 or so different MLB stadiums. A couple of baseball junkies who understand the importance of role players.

To wrap up with a quote from The Tao of the Backup Catcher and the importance of role players: “More than most understand the value of what they do, making them almost arrogantly humble.”

Degree of difficulty

It’s interesting, chatting with fans at the Patch or overhearing conversations. One of my pet peeves—where I have slowly learned whether or not to get in that sandbox—is speculation of why curlers miss certain shots. 

To speculate it was nerves or insecurity or whatever is, of course, pure speculation. 

Brad Gushue said a few years ago that when he lost that Canadian junior final back in the day on a last rock miss, he struggled with the “why.”

Gushue had a good sit-down conversation with his coach, Toby McDonald, who asked him at that time what he thought his overall shooting average was, game by game. Gushue replied with approximately 82%.

Then the coach asked what he thought his average was when throwing the last shot of a game. Brad said probably about 82%. Toby wisely said, “So you’re pretty much the same all the time.”

Gushue considered it an “ah ha” moment. That next season, he and his team won both the Canadian and world junior titles. Gushue said he had the most amazing season on last rock shots for the win. They made them all. Perspective.

I believe it was Cheryl Bernard of Olympic and TSN fame who told me her take on this: high-performance curlers make at least 90 to 95% of those wide-open hits or draws. But what is the percentage of those high degree of difficulty shots? For the average club curler, 10% or under? For the high-performance curler, maybe 50-75%? And that’s high on some days.

So many factors can be involved. It’s funny how we can fool ourselves when we make a hero shot, we can do it all the time or we expect the top curlers to do it all the time.

Let’s go from Kevin Costner’s (first) baseball movie to Tin Cup:

“Perfection is unobtainable as the body coils down at the top of the swing. Theres a slight hesitation. A little nod to the gods. (A nod to the gods, he was asked?) Yeah, to the gods. That he is fallible. That perfection is unobtainable.”

Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that curling is not a game of perfection.

The sidekick

The Max, my wife, came to the SK vs MB page 3 vs 4 playoff, but I had to leave her for a couple of ends to go to the media bench. Once there I sat beside Kristina Rutherford from Sportsnet (enjoy her writing) and a woman in a brown baseball hat. I was chatting with both until I realized “ballcap” was Colleen Jones, six-time STOH champion.

In the second end, Matt Dunstone was looking at a near-impossible shot to bounce back from being two down early. A miss would have made it 4-0 for Sask. Colleen blurts out, “Don’t invent the shot over something ridiculous.” I must remember that one.

(Matt made a compromise in his decision making.)

Where I sat with The Max there was a car load or two from Brandon, Mike McEwen’s hometown. You could tell they hard a hard time cheering for Saskatchewan. The rivalry runs deep in every sport between these two curling-crazed provinces.

They wound up clapping for both teams, but from the comments one could tell it wasn’t easy to applaud the green. One lady clapped for McEwen then said, “What am I doing? I can’t cheer for those guys in green.” I think her husband knew McEwen, but she didn’t.

This one is from The Max, who started curling eight years ago and has become a deadly lead. She asked what McEwen was thinking on his last rock win-or-lose takeout: “Do you think he was nervous? Would you be nervous?”

“Depends on his mindset,” I thought to reply. “He may be a little upset for giving up four points in ends seven to nine to come home all tied up. It becomes a healthy anger that really gets you into a mindset of narrow focus, pushing away all distractions.

“He could be nervous and just focused on whatever he does to get his mind straight. Or he could have just focused on kick, release and weight, minimizing any thoughts of the result…”

The one time Max curled with yours truly—in a doubles ’spiel that never quite hit national coverage—was in her hometown. She had to make a tough through-the-port hit and roll to help seal the deal.

I loved her line, “I think I might have been like Mike might have been. Just the shot and nothing else! First off, I didn’t want to disappoint you (which never even would have occurred to me). All I thought about was forget the scoreboard, hit the broom, throw the right weight and it worked … and then I got nervous.”

Best sports psychology I’ve heard all week … just the shot, and nothing else.

Curling just may be the only sport—or one of the rare ones—where you’ll hear fans at major events describe “this same thing we’re watching now, it happened to me in a bonspiel (or league) game, and this is what we did...”

I don’t hear much of that at a NHL, MLB or CFL game, fans comparing local triumphs to the accomplishments of the pros. I think its because most of us who have played this game has faced a Scotties or Brier player somewhere along the way, and perhaps didn’t embarrass ourselves or even eked out a win, even if that pro was curling with three newbies.

Name another sport where you often see athletes of the highest level playing with and against recreational players ...and loving it.