Another season...

Only a few weeks away from another curling season. How will it unfold for me? I shan’t be playing. Again. Putting that aside, which does not get easier with time, I expect to continue fulminating about the homogenisation of “my” sport with the entertainment industry. I just want to watch curling. As such my perfect TV viewing is a Canadian provincial championship taking place at a club rather than an arena, with commentary from expert curlers with no entertainment industry profile.

During the close season, my former teammate Rebecca Morrison announced she was standing down from the Scottish professional curling squad and leaving Scotland. When my late chum Willie Jamieson and I decided to play seniors curling together and needed practice together, we joined the local super league in division 4, but needed two players.  I found a couple of youngsters, and Rebecca joined our team. Fourteen years old, we knew immediately she was going to be a great player. I learned how to curl, rather than just how to throw, by sparing for men old enough to be my grandfather, and then being sought out by them as my ability improved. I humour myself that although I can no longer play, I did complete the virtuous circle.

Since stepping back from the rink, I have only seen Rebecca once, at the launch of the fund to support junior curling set up in Willie’s name.  Lovely event. I am not sure how the subject came up, but a group of us including Rebecca were discussing the use of language while playing. Now Willie and I were hardly in the league of Ben Hebert, but our language was often indelicate. I turned to Rebecca and asked “Did you ever hear Willie or I swear?” Quick as a flash she replied, “No, but that’s alright, I picked it up elsewhere”.   I expect with Rebecca’s focus and concentration she will succeed whatever she does, wherever she goes.

I read in this website, that Eve Muirhead will be back playing this coming season. I don’t know Eve, but I shared a room with her dad when we were at the ’97 Olympic trials, and enjoyed our M&M breakfasts. That’s a Marlborough and a Macallan for the uninitiated. This return will be to play Mixed Doubles, a discipline I have conscientiously avoided, never seen it, don’t know the rules, and feel purer for that. This may strike readers as an outbreak of Old Man Syndrome. Playing curling in the late sixties, only a few years after the last visit of the most important team ever to play in Scotland, Ernie Richardson’s, I remember overhearing middle-aged opponents murmuring under their breath that hitting every stone they put in the rings was not curling. Now it’s my turn.  O Tempora, o Mores!

I am reluctant to pay to watch curling. It’s an age thing. I did pay to go and see the Canadian Curling trials in 1997, after a brief conversation with my brother, we agreed it would be the best competition of the century – so we went. Ironically, it was on the same sheet he  lost the final of the worlds to Kerry Burtnyk a couple of years earlier. Last season, TSN made one game available per session from the Canadian championships free of charge, outside of Canada. Great work. The Scottish Championships, both of which are now pay to view, no longer decides who goes to the worlds. So why bother?

I expect with a bit of YouTube searching, and keeping an eye on our chums at CurlingZone I can continue to watch good curling, free of charge. Enjoy this season everyone!