Blog
What is deliberate practice in curling?
In recent years the decline in participation in youth curling has led to a number of challenges in a variety of areas, from team formation, to event management, to coaching. In Ontario, as one example, the drop in participation of U20 teams has been nothing short of catastrophic. In 1990, 192 junior men’s teams entered zone playdowns for the Ontario Curling Association, where two zone representatives from each of the 16 competition zones in southern Ontario would earn the right to compete at four regional championships, with the winners and runners-up from those regional competitions going on to compete at the Provincial championship. Today, southern Ontario’s zone and regional competitions have vanished, replaced with one (sometimes two) qualifiers which may have teams advance to the provincial championship after playing just one or two games. In the past two seasons (2022-2023 and 2023-2024) the total number of junior men’s entries has been under 15 teams, with approximately half of those teams
Ten reasons why an interval time might be inaccurate
This article is joint work with John Newhook of Dalhousie University in Halifax. Using interval, or “split” times, can benefit the delivering team because an interval time provides a proxy measurement for the velocity of the stone at release. With an interval time, the two brushers can utilize the time to assist with their weight judgement, and the delivering player can use a split time to assist their delivery with respect to weight control. However, relying on splits – either back-line to near hog line or, less commonly, tee-line to near hog line – can be complicated. One complication is that, to be more effective, the team must map split times into other timing systems, such as hog-to-hog times or hog-to-far tee-line times if they are to utilize the throws of the opposition team to help judge the speed of the ice. But the mapping of split times is by far not the only complication in their use. In this
Does handedness matter in brushing?
Functional laterality – that is, handedness, footedness, and ocular dominance, are important physical characteristics in many team sports, such as ice hockey and baseball, or in racquet sports such as tennis, squash, and badminton. Handedness is often less of an issue in other sports, particularly individual sports, such as darts, or golf. Handedness, in particular, has been studied extensively [1,2]. Handedness refers to an individual’s preferential use of one hand over the other due to strength, quickness, or dexterity. The preferential hand is commonly referred to as the dominant hand. About 10% of the human population is left-handed, though this proportion does vary slightly by gender (males 10.5%, females 8.7%) [1,2], with 1% of the population being ambidextrous, having an equal ability with both hands. Taylor Stremick of Team Ashley Thevenot of Saskatoon being tested on a CurlSmart instrumented brush at the Sutherland Curling Club. To a significant degree, in many sports the advantage for a left-handed athlete is simply
Using lasers in curling – an update
In the five years since John Newhook and I drafted this document describing the use of lasers in curling the technology has continued to improve and become more affordable, so it seemed like an update was in order. With many curling clubs moving to LED lighting for their arenas, green light lasers have now become the norm, rather than the exception, and their cost has plummeted. The lasers that I use (see below) can now be purchased from Amazon for a mere $38.69 Canadian, a significant drop from five years ago. Even a rechargeable, green laser pointer for presentations can be had for only $16, a long way from the nearly $200 I spent on a red laser pointer when I was in graduate school at the University of Manitoba. Of course, none of the lasers for sale anywhere are intended for curling, and the majority are intended for one of three use cases: for use with a firearm, usually
SWEEP!
SWEEP! is a curling board game for two players (or teams), aged 14+, developed by my friend Michael Demko and available for online purchase from The Game Crafter. While being a very talented Computer Scientist in his daily work, Michael, who is a University of Waterloo alumnus and originally hails from Yellowknife, NWT, is also an avid curler and has been developing SWEEP! for several years. In SWEEP!, Mike has put together a game that combines elements of curling strategy and tactics with aspects of the randomness of shot outcomes – for example, a “miss” can result in a roll to the left, to the right, or a roll-out – in a game suitable for players who are teens or older. The board The board consists of twelve “zones”, six zones being in the rings – three in front of the tee line, and three behind – along with another six zones in front of the rings for guards. For
Curling Canada’s Singles App
Curling Canada’s Singles app, a free application for both Apple and Android devices, permits an athlete or a coach to evaluate their shot-making skills and record and review results through a season. In addition, athlete and team scores can be compared to other athletes across Canada. In my experience, the existence of the Singles app is unknown to many coaches, especially U15 or U18 coaches who are new to coaching; hence this article. The Singles application leads an athlete or coach through specific shots whose number and level of difficulty are pre-determined by the age range(s) of the athletes: U15, U18, U21, or U25+. The application supports two distinct operational phases: competition and practice. For competition, the athletes “compete” through a series of shots with the thrower accumulating points for shots made (one or two of their teammates brush, and another holds the broom). Shot-making points are accumulated through the exercise and the athlete with the highest number of points