Registered: Mar 2005
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Quit calling this a National Championship, it is nothing more than a bonspiel. That might settle everyone down,

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Registered: Jan 2012
Location: DeWitt, MI
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quote:

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Originally posted by peglegg
Quit calling this a National Championship, it is nothing more than a bonspiel. That might settle everyone down,

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Registered: Mar 2005
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Posts: 101

Listen I curled for many years on arena Ice so I sympathize and understand the challenges. Please tell me about the playdowns and how the qualifying rounds went?
I tell everyone I know I am George Clooney but when I look in the mirror at night unfortunately it is not true.

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Registered: Sep 2011
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How many playdowns were there for Mixed Doubles?

How about those qualifying rounds for Senior Men's?

"National Championships" doesn't require playdowns, partcularly not for a first time event.

Given time, the event may grow to a degree that requires those things, one never knows.

The only thing a National Championship requires is that, at the end, a team is declared, by a competent body, to be "National Champions".

And guess what...that happened a couple days ago.

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Registered: Dec 2008
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Peg,

I get where you are coming from and agree. If you look at my post I didn't use the word "National". Just like I don't usually say "Club Nationals" but instead say Clubs. I reserve the word "Nationals" for the event that sends our men's and women's team to the World's (Although considering the recent format change I may have to modify that).

That being said some of the Arena clubs did have playdowns to determine the rep. Dallas-Ft. Worth had a playdown as did Ft. Wayne. I believe that there was another club that had a playdown but I am not sure who. If the arena championship grows perhaps there will be more playdowns in the future.

I think that the USCA wanted to use the word "National" to lend some prestige to the event and encourage more people to participate. They wanted to expose more people to what it is like to play at a higher level and timed games. They also brought in a high level coach to give seminars. Expose more teams to the commitment and training that is required to be a competitive team.

A worthy goal.

TN

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Registered: Feb 2013
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quote:

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Originally posted by AlanMacNeill

The only thing a National Championship requires is that, at the end, a team is declared, by a competent body, to be "National Champions".

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Registered: Sep 2011
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Well...okay...I'll give you that...

but in this instance..."competent" just means "widely recognized as the body that can declare a champion"

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Registered: Dec 2005
Location: St. Thomas, North Dakota
Posts: 2613

First Steski is writting better than me...now dbsdbs is funnier than me. I might quit.

I'm still not willing to agree about allowing sticks until they shoot from the hack like the rest of us.

Ben Tucker

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Registered: Sep 2011
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Fine, I'll shoot with a stick with a foot in the hack, no sweat.

So long as you are required to release the stone from your positive control while you still have one foot in the hack as well.

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Registered: Dec 2008
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Ever since Ken Watson invented the slide, very few of us are shooting from the hack.;-)

I just don't see the "stick" as some huge advantage. I have never heard of anyone voluntarily switching to the stick. People only switch because their bodies have broken down and they can no longer throw with a regular delivery. At that point they can either quit curling or pick up the delivery stick.

I understand banning the stick in events that lead to a World level (obviously excluding wheelchair) but why disenfranchise them from Clubs and Arenas? Right now as far as I know they have no event that they can play in.

If you want to change the release point to the T line, no problem but let them play.

TN

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Registered: Jan 2012
Location: DeWitt, MI
Posts: 100

People keep forgetting about sensor handles. You can't use a stick or even wear a glove if you're using sensor handles at an event. Sensor handles are used at all levels, even Clubs. However, they were not used in Ft. Wayne. Just sayin'.

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Registered: Sep 2011
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Technological hacks should not drive the rules of an event.

I and a couple of my electrical engineer buddies (it's good to work for a major defense technology contractor) could, easily, if armed with the specs of the sensor handles, devise a delivery stick that would "engage" the Handle when the shooter has control of the stone, and "release" it once the shooter has delivered the stone.

And, to be blunt, from what I know of sensor handles, it would probably be more accurate than the hand sensing currently in place.

So...what's your next try?

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Registered: Jul 2013
Location: 216
Posts: 41

The stick obviously will never be used at an event that leads to worlds, however you are crazy to think that it is not an advantage vs a slide...a certain member of the Olympic team and I (no names please) played with the stick one on one every wed in Duluth. trust me, makes the game pretty easy when you can walk out to the hogline and shoot.. I'm just saying.

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Registered: Sep 2011
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Well, there's a definitive statement on the subject....

new poster, no names, claims of playing a hybrid version of a drill with someone with excpetional skill.

Yeah, that matters.

Plain and simple, yes, the best stick curlers will be better than average slide curlers. And yes, for some shots, a stick may be a more advantageous delivery mechanism than a slide.

Guess what...the same would apply to being left handed rather than right handed...or someone who spent far more time working on their in turn than their out. Or draws vs hits...

Point of fact...*legally*, there is *nothing* in rule R.5 preventing you from leaning over wearing a pair of shoes, bent over holding the handle of the stone and walking from the hack, then delivering from the hog, so long as you do not release the stone until you deliver it. Hell...legally you can kneel crawl from the hack to the hog line, and then shove with all your might. So the "they can change their speed up to the hog" argument is BS...the rules don't say you're not allowed to...slide delivery folks have just chosen to use a delivery technique that makes changing speed difficult...your choice on methodology doens't make mine illegitimate.

Hmm...now there's an interesting thought....sign up for a playdown, and deliver a stone using all of the ways that the rules allow....watch folks heads explode....damn...that's almost worth the money...

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Registered: Dec 2008
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I, for one, appreciate the comments by MiniMark and runinrock.

Never having thrown with the stick, I don't have any personal experience to judge if it is an advantage or not. My assumption that it was not an advantage is based on the following observations.

1) Nobody I know has volunatirly switched to the stick. They have only switched as a last resort.
2) I have seen some people temporarily switch to the stick for medical reasons but they switch back as soon as physically able.
3) Whenever I see a team with 1 stick curler and 3 normal curlers the stick curler always throws lead rocks and then goes and calls the game.
4) I have never seen a team with a stick curler win a spiel.


So I guess my question to runinrock is: If using the stick makes the game pretty easy why doesn't he always use the stick? Or use the stick in cashspiels to make some easy money? Is there something that I am missing?

TN

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Registered: Sep 2011
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I have curled with a stick and without.

I will freely admit that it easier and faster to get from zero to a level of mediocre skill with a stick than a slide delivery.

Mediocre skill being defined as most of your shots are generally playable, if you are shooting for a guard, you're in the FGZ, maybe not on the exact line being asked for, but within a rock or so, and with a length sufficient to be controllable by skilled sweepers to be within a couple feet of the right length.

IE good enough to be an accepted player at your club league, occasionally nail a shot perfectly, that kind of thing.

However, there is, in my experience, a much higher ramp up curve in getting from that mediocre skill level to the level where you are able to control your stones at a High Level. This is, in my opinion, because it is significantly harder to precisely control the angle of delivery of your stone when you have a 4' lever arm between your hand and the handle...add in the sloppy connection between the stick and the handle, and the sloppyness of putting a precise spin on the stone, and it is exceedingly difficult to put an accurate draw shot down.

since, as we have seen, at the National level, putting a stone 1/2 a stone off is (rightly) punished by skilled opposition, I do not believe a stick curler is likely to be a viable candidate for Skip stones on a National Championship team, or even Vice stones.

I could believe a Stick Curler could achieve the level of accuracy needed to throw acceptable lead quality stones at a national level, so a team where the Skip throws lead rocks with a stick, then takes the house, would seem viable to me.

I know of very few curlers who deliver with a stick who would have the ability to sweep on a National Level acceptably. Plain and simple, if you've got the mobility to sweep at that level, you've probably got the mobility to do a traditional delivery.

Personally, though, I think it's wrong to keep stick curlers from anything beyond pure recreational bonspieling. Let them play at Mixed, at Clubs, at Arena championships...basically, the events that aren't leading to World or Olympic Berths. These "Recreational National Championships", for lack of a better term, should be celebrations of the diversity and inclusion of the game, not exclusive

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Registered: Jan 2012
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Wouldn't you want "the best wax for your stick" as lead sponsor?

nom de broom

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Registered: Aug 2011
Location: California
Posts: 9

Hi all,

This is Gabrielle Coleman. I am a USCA board director and was on the Arena Curling/Arena Nationals Committee this year, and will be the volunteer chair next year. (USCA Growth and Development Manager, Kim Nawyn, is the staff lead.) (And as a full disclaimer, any views I express here are my own, not the opinion of the committee or staff, nor are they a sign of the future direction of the event.)

First, I want to thank the USCA staff, volunteers, venue hosts, icemakers, instructors, and athletes who participated in this first USCA Arena National Championship. The event exceeded my expectations in every way – from the competitive, to the educational, to the social components. For me, the beautiful and elaborate team uniforms were the biggest – and nicest – surprise. Even though uniforms are required, teams could have met the requirement with plain black tee shirts and hoodies. Instead, there was a huge variety of smart and interesting jackets and shirts – with club and individual names on both the shirts and jackets. Few teams at Men’s and Women’s Nationals do that. It was a sign to me of how seriously arena curlers take their sport, and of how proud and excited they were to be at a National Championship. As an arena curler myself, I couldn’t be prouder. I think it is a powerful signal about the future of our branch of curling growth and development.

There is a great discussion underway on this thread about some key aspects of the Arena National Championships (e.g. Should we include dual arena/dedicated ice athletes? What does it mean to be a National Championship?) I think these are very valid discussions that we’ll be having for a long time. As someone who’s been involved in this process from the beginning, I want to give you a little background on how we got to the rules we currently have, and what the decision process may be like going forward and how you can get involved. (This is the history and process as I know it. There may be others with more or more current details.)

History

I started curling after the 2006 Olympics, and the first time I heard talk about an Arena National Championships was at Club Nationals in 2007. (A bunch of us arena participants were joking about leveling the playing field by holding Club Nationals on our own uneven turf.) There was loose talk about it for years after that, some serious, some silly. In 2011 (as best I recall), the USCA Arena Curling Committee started talking more seriously about what an event like this might look like.

Our goal was to create an event that would provide a competitive, developmental stepping stone for arena curlers. We wanted something that would be elevating, and that would help arena curlers to become successful at higher levels of competition – we didn’t just want to crown the best of the worst. Here are some other things that were important to us:

•We wanted an event that didn’t require expensive inter-club playdowns. (Arena ice is expensive and many arena curlers have to fly to visit their closest neighbors.)

•We wanted to include as many arena clubs as possible for multiple reasons: (1) to increase connectedness between arena curlers, arena clubs, and the USCA, (2) to give more curlers the basic competitive experience necessary to move forward, and (3) to have more new arena curlers bring back advanced knowledge (like competitive and club development know-how and culture) to their home clubs.

•We wanted a half-week event so more people would be able to participate. (We felt this would be especially important for experienced curlers who might be playing in multiple events, but who could play the important role of skipping newbies at an Arena Championship.)

•We decided to have men’s and women’s teams (instead of open) and to give an incentive to clubs who send both as a way of boosting women’s competitive curling development. (This was a trick learned from the Pacific International Cup, and seems to have worked very well in our first year.)

•We wanted to include educational seminars to increase the focus on education and development at the event. (Thank you, Sandra McMakin, for leading sessions on strategy, club development, and coaching game review techniques.)

One reason this event is so important to me, personally, is because I had the benefit of doing something like this when I started. In my first year of curling (2006-07), I skipped a team of other first-year curlers at Club Nationals. I was lucky to be from a region (MoPac) which had only arena clubs at that time, so even though we had to win a playdown, we had a reasonable chance of making it to Club Nationals.

When we got there, we got crushed by most teams. I’d only skipped a few games on “real” ice (that curls both ways), and I’d never played on a time clock. I had to ask simple questions of my opponents, like, “How do I know when to start?” It was a HUGE education – and, in fact, I learned the most from the brutal beatings, in which smart skips called systematic strategies that never gave me a chance to make a shot.

But even though the line scores made it seem like I didn’t belong there, that experience gave me an invaluable glimpse of what I needed to do to get to the next level. I went home and developed new training techniques, and I came back to Club Nationals in my third year and skipped a different team to a bronze medal – which required me to beat some of the ladies who’d crushed me two years earlier. I also played in the Olympic Trials that year.

That is what I hope the Arena National Championships can do for the rest of my fellow arena curlers, especially those who are from regions with many strong dedicated ice clubs. I want to guarantee arena curlers an opportunity to participate and learn, just like I had. I know how difficult it can be to compete from an arena club, but I also know that, with the right support, it can be done.

Should “Dual” Dedicated/Arena Athletes Participate?

I think the answer to this question depends on whether or not you see Arena Nationals as a “protected class” event, or as a stepping stone to higher-level events. Both views are totally valid and both types of events have important roles in sports. For example, if you view Arena Nationals as a “protected class” event (like Juniors or Wheelchair curling) in which specific classifications are set to level the playing field, then yes, dedicated ice curlers should be blocked or limited. If you see Arena Nationals as a stepping stone event (like Club Nationals), then no, because “dual” curlers raise the level of competition at the event and contribute to arena curling development.

If “dual” curlers are allowed, there is a risk that “trophy hunters” will go after the event. (By “trophy hunters,” I mean teams of four curlers from a dedicated ice club who curl together in a league at an arena club, but who don’t teach or otherwise contribute to the development of the arena club.) I don’t think anyone wants to see that happen. However, the “dual” curlers that I saw at this year’s Arena Nationals, were very different. Some were people who had been traveling a long distance for years to play at a dedicated club who had since additionally started an arena club near where they lived. There were also some new arena curlers, who made the trek to dedicated ice once a week to try to take their game to the next level. I think all of these people are doing valuable things that we, as an organization, should encourage.

Blocking “dual” curlers also doesn’t prevent accomplished curlers who used to play on dedicated ice from winning the event. But again, the former dedicated-ice curlers I saw at the event this year also had very new arena curlers on their teams, who they had invested a lot of time and effort into training. In my view, that’s also something that is very good for arena curling in general.

What To Do?

First, I’m glad this is a thread on Curling Zone, because it should be a national discussion topic. Second, if we do decide to make changes to these rules, there are many ways to do it:

We can do it on the national level, via discussions in the Arena Curling Committee with USCA volunteers and staff. (You are welcome to join! Please contact me at gcurling@gmail.com for more info.) Or we can do it on a local level, by allowing clubs to set their own, stricter rules for participation.

We can also set partial limits instead of full bans. For example, we could require that teams have, at most, one player who’s playing at the M/W Nationals that year, or two players who are “dual” curlers.

Conclusion

Again, the “dual” curler issue all comes down to how you see this event. For me, I want to guarantee arena curlers a chance to participate and learn, but think that wins should be earned. I’ve never won a National Championship, but when I do, I want it to be because I made myself worthy of being a National Champion, not because I found an event that was easy enough to win with the skills I currently have.

Many thanks,
Gabrielle Coleman

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Registered: Dec 2005
Location: New York
Posts: 592

We were called shuffleboard on ice before the stick was invented, now its official we are shuffleboard on ice. I did use the stick for 1 year, Man can you throw weight.... Saratoga's open the lake is 25 minutes away, win a couple grand then fish for Walleye... Curlers and even shuffleboarders are welcome..........

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Registered: Dec 2005
Location: New York
Posts: 592

I could not sleep last night ( election season) but that was a personal invite to you to come to Saratoga, and enjoy the lake... And if Tuck shows up too we'll deal with that... Hope he brings his better half.... Love the 5 in the 7th today.......

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Registered: Jan 2012
Location: DeWitt, MI
Posts: 100

quote:

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Originally posted by AlanMacNeill


Plain and simple, yes, the best stick curlers will be better than average slide curlers. And yes, for some shots, a stick may be a more advantageous delivery mechanism than a slide.

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Registered: Dec 2008
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Posts: 87

Thank you Gabrielle for posting about the history and thinking behind this event.

I thought that the event was very well run and want to thank all of the volunteers that made it successful. The ice was a real treat (National standard 24 seconds 4 feet of curl)and the Ft. Wayne facility was fantastic.

I totally agree about your comments regarding the event being competitive, educational and social (maybe a little too social in my case). We had a great time meeting other arena curlers from all over the country and learned a little bit about what others do to over come the challanges of arena ice.

Thanks again to all involved in a great event and looking forward to next year.

TN
(aka Dannie Steski)
Long Island CC

PS. On a personal note: Gabrielle it was nice to have a chance to sit down and speak to you. Hope to see you again.

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Registered: Sep 2011
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quote:

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And there's the rub. The stick is an external device that provides an advantage for certain shots. Advantage. Done. That's why it cannot be used in National events. I believe that was the reason why they were not allowed at Arenas Champs.

I

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Registered: Feb 2012
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Posts: 324

Gabrielle, What is the history about forbidding sticks at Arena Nationals?

And why are sticks still banned at USOC-sanctioned events when our Congress chartered USOC with the following as one of its 14 corporate purposes?

(13) to encourage and provide assistance to amateur athletic programs and competition for amateur athletes with disabilities, including, where feasible, the expansion of opportunities for meaningful participation by such amateur athletes in programs of athletic competition for able-bodied amateur athletes; and..... (36 U.S. Code Section 220503)


The legal standard on disability discrimination for sticks is accomodation where "feasible". How was is not feasible for sticks to play in Ft Wayne?

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Registered: Feb 2011
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Posts: 96

I'm assuming they don't allow sticks for the same reason basketball doesn't allow amputees to have 6 ft arms to play basketball or flippers to swim. It is a fundamental change in the sport to use a stick.. Sorry if that's harsh, but I don't have the abilities to be a nationally ranked gymnast or basketball player. I accept that, and curl instead. (Although I assure you not nationally ranked). I can do somersaults and play pickup basketball games all I want but I don't expect the rules to be changed so I can play on a national level. I view stick curling the same way. It is great for the sport at a recreational level, but I guess I don't understand why it is considered to be the same game. The argument of whether it is an advantage or not is mute. It's simply a different part of the game altogether.

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