Equipment
A visit to Asham’s
Our annual summer holiday on the Prairies gave us another opportunity to visit the main Asham’s store at 700 McPhillips Street in Winnipeg’s North End. Asham’s huge retail outlet is a mecca for both competitive and recreational curlers, where autographed portraits of well-known teams adorn the walls and stairways in the main retail space, and the manufacturing floor at the rear is in full production of the coming season’s lines of brooms. I have used Asham equipment since I first started curling and the quality of their equipment, and their level of service, is second-to-none. With the assistance of Asham’s helpful staff (Audrey) we were able to find new Slam curling shoes at a substantial discount, along with a whole range of other equipment including Asham curling mitts, Asham stopwatches for my boys, and a new, wider cloth broom bag – for carrying all those brooms to Little Rock and bantam bonspiels.
Mitt samples available at Open House next week
Thanks to Mike Furey and his staff at Adventure Guide, we’ll have samples of children’s mitts suitable for curling on display at next week’s Open House at Elmira on October 5th and 6th, and again at the Junior Curling open houses on October 16th and 23rd. For curling, mitts are much preferable to gloves. More importantly, mitts should have “sticky palms” so that they can grip a brush handle while sweeping. Adventure Guide’s new Waterloo store is located at the Boardwalk plaza at Ira Needles and University Avenue. Mike tells me that the store has a large supply of children’s winter clothing in-stock. You can reach Adventure Guide at 519-886-3121 or by email at info@advguide.com.
Ice Halo now available for use at Elmira
In time for the start of the 2011-2012 curling season, Little Rock and Bantam curlers who are nervous about being on the ice will have the opportunity to use an Ice Halo at the Elmira and District Curling Club. I was first introduced to the Ice Halo this past April at a clinic at the Guelph Curling Club. The Ice Halo has been greeted enthusiastically by both participants and coaches alike. The Ice Halo, manufactured in Canada and distributed by Ice Halo in Barrie, Ontario, is designed to provide protection from head injuries for figure skaters and curlers without the bulk of a helmet. The Ice Halo is a protective head band made of a closed cell, light weight foam and covered with micro-fleece or Faux Furs. [Our] patented design has been tested and proven to reduce impact force by over 250G. The Ice Halo wraps snugly and comfortably around your head and secures with adjustable Velcro closures to provide
Curling Strategy Tool on iPhone
I have often used a strategy board to discuss game situations with the athletes I coach. A strategy board is a really useful tool and I make sure I have one at each practice and every game. But one frustration that I have is being able to document situations during a game and be able to discuss them afterwards or at a subsequent practice. Switching to paper when I have more than one situation to document is rather inconvenient – though I’ve done so oodles of times. Moreover, the paper copy is harder to share amongst team members, and my handwriting is appalling (just ask my kids). A solution comes with the Curling Strategy Tool for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad that’s available from Apple’s iTunes App Store. The application, recently upgraded to version 2.4.1 (20 May 2011), was developed by Jeff Rogers and is from the same firm that also sells the ROG stopwatch curling application, also for iPhone
Curling shoes: choosing a slider
A curler has two primary pieces of equipment: a brush, and a pair of curling shoes. In golf, multi-million advertising dollars are spent each year by golf shoe manufacturers such as Footjoy (recently sold to interests in South Korea) to convince golfers that one golf shoe matters over another. I would argue that in curling, a shoe – particularly what type of slider is used – matters considerably more. Unfortunately, in both golf and curling it is difficult to buy shoes on the “try before you buy” plan. Hence in this article I’ll try to document the range of options for curling shoes. Proper curling footwear offers a considerable advantage over slip-on sliders, tape, or other temporary means of enabling a slide delivery. A proper curling shoe will assist with balance, reduce the amount of effort required to throw hit weight, permit more consistency by allowing a longer and more stable slide with each throw, and permit better grip, and
The Junior hack
This afternoon I helped Jason Rice and John Tartt run a Club Coach refresher course at the Guelph Curling Club. During the course I got some interest in the Junior program at Elmira and, in particular, the Junior hack we use for 7- and 8-year-olds. I realized that I didn’t have any photographs of the Junior hack posted on Throwing Stones, so here they are. As you can see from this photograph: the Junior hack is constructed of 2×6 cedar planks, held together by a combination of 3 1/2 and 4 1/2 inch galvanized bolts, and attached to the side boards of the curling club adjacent to sheet 1. The hack consists of a single Marco hack on each end, which when mounted sits directly on the center line. I went with a single hack design simply to save on weight, to reduce the amount of torque on the structure when it’s in use. Attaching the hack to the side