This delightful book, published in October 2022, is a collaboration between Scotland’s Doug Wilson and long-time Alberta skip (and Curling Alberta board member) Mickey Pendergast. In addition to the book, Doug runs the Daily Curling Puzzle group on Facebook, which boasts 23.5k members and offers frequent strategy puzzles for education and comment.
What’s Your Call is a unique book in that it couples a particular on-ice scenario from an actual competitive game with a video clip that shows the setup and then the actual shot attempted by that particular team in that game. For the most part, game scenarios are taken from Canadian Season of Champions games so as to avoid geo-blocking from World Curling events. The book contains 50 such real-life scenarios. Unlike many older volumes on strategy, the scenarios are taken from a variety of fairly recent matches and so the 5-rock FGZ rule is in effect (but alas, not the more recent “No-Tick” rule change adopted this season).
Puzzle #38 – highlighting a strategy situation from the 2020 Brier with Ontario’s John Epping playing Alberta’s Kevin Koe in the 10th end of their round-robin game. The video clip that accompanies that particular scenario is shown above.
The book contains a number of elements that I really like, and should benefit coaches of all LTCD stages:
- Wilson and Pendergast separate the notions of strategy and tactics (see the page at right) and present a brief, though very instructive, high-level discussion about strategy and how to “shape” an end.
- Unlike many other books or resources on strategy that either (a) only deal with the opening shots of an end or (b) only present complicated scenarios with a great many rocks in play, the authors include a mix of both. For example, Puzzle #23 describes techniques for defending the five-stone FGZ using a scenario with four stones in play; Puzzle #30 describes a scenario where the lead, in this case Briane Harris of Team Kerri Einarson, has (just) missed her “tick” shot playing the 10th end against Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg.
- The first ten scenarios focus on the fundamentals of strategy and present some terrific introductory material for beginning skips. Check out Puzzle #2 on the book’s website for an example.
In addition, the authors frequently include advice to younger or more inexperienced teams with specific scenarios. Because the “puzzles” are based on top-teams’ competitive games, the teams in question benefit from superb shot-making and (usually) outstanding brushing, and hence make the majority of their shots. For coaches of younger teams, say U18s, shot selection in a specific scenario may well be different than the one that was actually played. Wilson and Pendergast acknowledge this difference and often add additional commentary for teams whose shot execution percentages may not necessarily compare with the players in the scenario.
This book is a fantastic resource for both coaches and players alike. The video clips for each scenario are accessible via a QR code on each page, so having your device at hand while reading the book easily combines the text with the actual shot.
What’s Your Call is available through both Amazon and Indigo, and at other bookstores across Canada.