Events clash, but is that a bad thing?

Mixed doubles was a hit in its second official Olympic appearance last February, unleashing a flood of new and returning events this season.

The discipline took centre stage last weekend, with multiple events running at the same time. And I have no idea if that’s a good or bad thing.

Leading the charge was the finale of the Mixed Doubles Super Series, created by Ontarians Wayne Tuck and Jay Allen and announced back in late July. The new series of five Canadian mixed doubles tournaments started in Ottawa (late September), Saskatoon, Sask. and Leduc, Alta. (in November) and finished with Winnipeg and finally Brantford, Ont. this month.

The first four events featured 32 world teams, with Brantford’s Super Series Championship a 24-team triple knockout.

CBC Sports has been involved from the beginning, although not through their traditional terrestrial network. Rather, Canada’s national broadcaster showcased the series across all streaming platforms—CBC Gem, cbcsports.ca, the CBC Sports app and the CBC Sports YouTube channel, with support from CBC’s social media accounts.

Allen gives much of the credit to Tuck.

“When Wayne made the transition from four-person men’s to play mixed doubles with (his wife) Kim, there wasn’t a lot of high quality tour events in Canada to play in,” said Allen from Brantford. “With mixed doubles being so popular at the Olympics, Wayne felt that Canada needed a tour for the athletes to compete against the best of the best.

“That was the proof of concept, and then my phone rang.”

A quick look at the CBC Sports YouTube viewer numbers shows an average of about 5,000 views for each of the last six event draws, peaking with 7,100 views for the Brantford quarterfinal draw. The feature match showcased Northern Ontarians Kira Brunton and Brad Jacobs (he’s also back in men’s four-player, folks) against MD specialists Laura Walker and Kirk Muyres.

Estonia’s Marie Kaldvee and Harri Lill won the all-European final, thumping Switzerland’s Jenny Perrett and Martin Rios 11-2 in just six ends to take the Super Series title.

The Estonians crushed their semifinal opponents, too.

I hadn’t noticed much advance promotion of the Series on the various CBC platforms, and I asked Allen about that.

“CBC has been very supportive as we build the series and we don’t foresee that changing,” he said.

“With the viewership we’re already receiving, the buzz it’s creating, not only in Canada but Europe as well, Wayne and I feel this new Super Series will be very popular worldwide in a very short period of time, especially leading into the next Olympic Games.”

But that was just one event in the growing mixed doubles discipline this past weekend.

Just down the road, the St. Thomas Mixed Doubles Classic took place with 22 pairings doing battle. The final saw Quebec’s newest national mixed (four-player) champion back end, Laurie St-Georges and Felix Asselin, defeat locals (and current four-player Ontario mixed champs) Laura Neil and Scott McDonald 8-4 in the final.

Out in Leduc, the Curling Stadium Alberta Curling Series Doubles This-Name-Is-Too-Long event attracted a strong 12-team field, led by the pairing of Rachel Homan and new Kevin Koe third Tyler Tardi. They blanked Selena Sturmay and Kyler Kleibrink 7-0 in the final.

That event was also streamed via the Curling Stadium facility offering and aired on CurlingZone. Previous Curling Stadium events from this fall have also aired on the CBC digital platforms—which is confusing—but that didn’t happen this past weekend, given CBC’s stronger relationship with the Super Series.

Next door in Martensville, Sask., the Great Western Mixed Doubles Tour Challenge took place with new five-time Canadian Seniors champion Patty Hersikorn teaming with veteran Steve Laycock to win the title. They upended the duo of Ashley Thevenot and Dustin Kalthoff by an 8-5 margin in the final.

That one had another decent field of 15 teams.

Is there more? Oh yes.

Across the pond, British Curling hosted the Euro Mixed Doubles Super Series—that’s a familiar event name—where Beijing four-player Olympians Hailey Duff and Bobby Lammie defeated Sophie Sinclair and Ross Whyte 8-6 in the final.

That was a very strong 10-team event filled with Scots plus two Norwegian pairs, although it’s worth noting that Scotland’s recent mixed doubles Olympians, Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat, chose to compete in Brantford, and not their hometown Euro series event in Stirling.

This absolute pile of MD events all taking place on the same weekend of the curling calendar has left me a bit baffled. My gut reaction is that this is a terrible thing—why are teams scattered across all manner of events, fighting for middling event sponsorship dollars and competing on various streaming platforms for what is still a small (smaller than four-player) number of fan eyeballs?

But on second thought … can we see any benefits of crowded mixed doubles weekends?

Mixed doubles involves half the athletes and, presumably, half the event infrastructure and support needed to host events. The low number of athletes required basically doubles the number of events you can host on any given weekend.

If the fans are coming out and watching—and I believe there were decent crowds at Brantford, St. Thomas, Leduc and Martsenville—then why not embrace more events, at more facilities, which could attract more curlers to this discipline?

Given these contrasting thoughts, I have no idea what to think. Readers are invited to send their opinions to confusedaboutmixeddoublesagain at thecurlingnews dot com.

(No … don’t do that, it’s not a real addy.)

Consistent with the theme of growth, Allen says his Series is increasing in number, with additional events in B.C. and Nova Scotia joining next season.

“With us adding two more events next year for a total of seven, scheduling is tight,” Allen said. “We’re hoping for the most part to have one per month, starting in October and concluding in March.

“We are staying very conscious of Curling Canada’s schedule, the European Championships and the Grand Slams. We will be releasing next year’s dates next month.”

Perhaps other mixed doubles event hosts should be consulted, too … although I still haven’t decided if multiple weekend events is a good or bad thing.

But y’all should talk anyway.