Enough is enough already

It’s time for people with microphones to get serious.

Almost one year ago, reigning Brier champion Brad Gushue responded to something on social media.

Gushue chimed in on a Twitter thread discussing the consistent mispronunciation of his last name.

He confirmed it should be pronounced GUH-zhu, not GOO-shoo. 

That’s “Guh” to start, with a quick “zzhh” (almost “sshh”) connector to the “shoo” finale.

“When I first came on the scene, people would ask and I’d say it like I always say it: ‘GUH’-zhoo,’” the skip told Canadian Press last year. “It (later) became a heavy emphasis on the ‘GOO’ and then ‘GOO-shoo.’

“I’d try to correct it and they’d make it an even worse mess of it, so I just gave up.”

The two-time Olympian first appeared on curling broadcaster TSN in the semifinals of the 1999 Canadian Juniors.

That’s 24 bloody years of mispronunciation.

How has Gushue, now a veteran competitor at age 42, not steadily lost his mind over this? That would certainly drive me insane.

Then again, I’m not a skip. I was a somewhat scattered lead. 

I don’t have a skip’s eternal patience of Job. Gushue must have a truckload.

Unless he watches his own “game tape” Gushue is missing much of the constant butchering of his name on television. Which brings us to in-arena announcing.

Stu Brown has been Curling Canada’s house emcee for no less than 21 years. He was surprised, as was virtually everyone else, to hear about all this following Gushue’s 2022 “three-legged” Brier exploits.

“I spoke to Brad’s dad and I spoke to (TSN commentator) Vic Rauter,” said Brown, who will welcome the crowd before tonight’s opening draw of the Brier in London (7:00 p.m., TSN).

“Brad’s father said they’re known as ‘GOO-shoo’ but it’s really ‘GUH-zhu.’ And Vic Rauter says he’s always pronounced the ‘zhu.’”

(I have to differ, a bit, with Rauter. I studied TSN game footage of Gushue from 2006, 2007, 2011, 2017, 2019 and 2020 and while Rauter sometimes says the “zzhh” he mostly misses the “Guh” and says “Goo.” Let’s just say he gets it right half the time.)

At least Rauter has a track record on this. Other curling play-by-play announcers and analysts marvelled at this development, and did nothing different.

“The ‘GOO-shoo’ name does sound better in an arena,” said Brown.

I agree. The errant pronunciation, GOO-shoo, sounds fantastic on a microphone. When I emceed the Grand Slam of Curling series, I dragged the hell out of that name: “Teeeeeam GOOOOOOO-shoooo!”

The crowd loved it. But now I think of Brad secretly wincing, and I can almost feel his bottled frustration.

I say enough is enough. The fact this all came out a year ago and nothing was done is pure laziness.

Remember Swedish legend Peter Lindholm? You had to think about that for a half-second, didn’t you? That’s because one day he suddenly asked the curling world to “call me Peja” and the curling world said “sure.” 

His name was changed, immediately and forever after, with no fuss.

Does anyone still call Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena the Air Canada Centre? The name change dropped in 2018 and was swiftly adopted.

And the only folks who still call that facility’s neighboring monstrosity “SkyDome” are furious with their Rogers bills (I don’t blame them).

I didn’t ask Brown if he would try the “new” name tonight at the Brier kickoff, but he suggested he might.

That kind of consideration is well-deserved, in my opinion. 

It’s high time people with microphones stand in front of a mirror, deliberately practice “GUH-zhu” for an hour and bring a new era to Brad Gushue’s last 3.25 years of high-performance curling competition.