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Sorry if I offend anyone in any way for posting what my thoughts after coming off the Challenge Round this weekend. These are merely my observations.

Tough way for Howard and other teams to go out this weekend in Challenge Round, but the teams that beat him both seemed up to the challenge and proved that they were good enough to compete with his team. Almost every team this weekend seemed to have the ability to play well and keep close with any other team.

The ice in Bradford in general was not exactly what was advertised. They claimed 3 - 3.5 feet of curl and speed being 25-25.5 seconds. In actual fact, the best we could manage was 2 feet toward the centre line and 3 feet off the line. Other spots were less than 2 feet. i.e. off the wall on sheet one and off the wall on sheet four, which were more like half a foot of curl to 1 foot of curl. Not ideal conditions , but playable. You really had to watch what you did on your release. That to me would favour teams who practice a fair bit and naturally have good releases. That being said, if someone had buried a draw around a tighter guard, the only way to remove the rock would be a run back. But this is why when you are on straight ice you need to focus more on controlling the front of the rings with your rocks so that when the players on the other teams bury a rock, you then can raise your own rocks.

The speed was good , I thought, and was close if not spot on to what was said by the club to the players who entered the competition. Friday night we were getting split times of 380 from back line to hog line at the beginning of the game and 395 after the first couple of ends. Unfortunately, the ice down the slide path started to fudge and the speed really came off when attempting a draw between the four foot lines. Still it was 380 down the middle, but you needed to navigate or go over the foot prints and a skips knee prints. Saturday morning you could tell that the ice crew had either lowered air temperature or ice temperature, or both, in an attempt to make the ice surface stay playable for 10 or 11 ends. That would make the ice a bit straighter than what it had been on Friday night.

My team went bang bang, but I thought the ice wasn�t bad at all. Bradford had a very clean ice surface. The Saturday morning games only lasted 6-8 ends, all games being blow outs, but our sheet held up better in that game. You would have to ask the curlers that were still in the competition after the Saturday 9am draw how the ice held up and whether or not there were picks due to foot prints or knee prints on the ice. I stayed and watched the 1pm draw and it didn�t seem like as many picked rocks, because normally you can tell as a spectator when a rock picks. Players will let you know when their rock has grabbed something or changed course after running over a shoe print or knee print by their reactions on the ice.

My closing thoughts/concerns are:

If the curling club textured the rocks prior to the competition, where was the curl?

If the reason for the lack of curl was ice temperature or air temperature being played with, why is the Bradford icemaker not informed of how to properly maintain the ice surface for the entire 10 or 11 end game? Surely there is a typical pebbling technique or pebble temperature that will allow the ice to hold up and allow the textured rocks to react on the surface that is being used.

Spencer Townley
spency44@hotmail.com

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Just one more thing to add....the split times we were getting in the Saturday morning game were between 375 and 385 for draw weight, back line to hog. A teeny bit slowere than Friday night, but by no means do I find this slow.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Unregistered
Sorry if I offend anyone in any way for posting what my thoughts after coming off the Challenge Round this weekend. These are merely my observations.

Tough way for Howard and other teams to go out this weekend in Challenge Round, but the teams that beat him both seemed up to the challenge and proved that they were good enough to compete with his team. Almost every team this weekend seemed to have the ability to play well and keep close with any other team.

The ice in Bradford in general was not exactly what was advertised. They claimed 3 - 3.5 feet of curl and speed being 25-25.5 seconds. In actual fact, the best we could manage was 2 feet toward the centre line and 3 feet off the line. Other spots were less than 2 feet. i.e. off the wall on sheet one and off the wall on sheet four, which were more like half a foot of curl to 1 foot of curl. Not ideal conditions , but playable. You really had to watch what you did on your release. That to me would favour teams who practice a fair bit and naturally have good releases. That being said, if someone had buried a draw around a tighter guard, the only way to remove the rock would be a run back. But this is why when you are on straight ice you need to focus more on controlling the front of the rings with your rocks so that when the players on the other teams bury a rock, you then can raise your own rocks.

The speed was good , I thought, and was close if not spot on to what was said by the club to the players who entered the competition. Friday night we were getting split times of 380 from back line to hog line at the beginning of the game and 395 after the first couple of ends. Unfortunately, the ice down the slide path started to fudge and the speed really came off when attempting a draw between the four foot lines. Still it was 380 down the middle, but you needed to navigate or go over the foot prints and a skips knee prints. Saturday morning you could tell that the ice crew had either lowered air temperature or ice temperature, or both, in an attempt to make the ice surface stay playable for 10 or 11 ends. That would make the ice a bit straighter than what it had been on Friday night.

My team went bang bang, but I thought the ice wasn�t bad at all. Bradford had a very clean ice surface. The Saturday morning games only lasted 6-8 ends, all games being blow outs, but our sheet held up better in that game. You would have to ask the curlers that were still in the competition after the Saturday 9am draw how the ice held up and whether or not there were picks due to foot prints or knee prints on the ice. I stayed and watched the 1pm draw and it didn�t seem like as many picked rocks, because normally you can tell as a spectator when a rock picks. Players will let you know when their rock has grabbed something or changed course after running over a shoe print or knee print by their reactions on the ice.

My closing thoughts/concerns are:

If the curling club textured the rocks prior to the competition, where was the curl?

If the reason for the lack of curl was ice temperature or air temperature being played with, why is the Bradford icemaker not informed of how to properly maintain the ice surface for the entire 10 or 11 end game? Surely there is a typical pebbling technique or pebble temperature that will allow the ice to hold up and allow the textured rocks to react on the surface that is being used.

Spencer Townley
spency44@hotmail.com

---

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quote:

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Originally posted by peteski


Well, in fairness, that was a really long post, lol. I wanted to focus on my main gripe. Certainly everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I must insist that the baseball analogy is not valid because it is a league and has a full season. If the playdowns included a full season of like 50 games, then I would agree that a bye to the Tankard is silly, but since they don't, then it is a completely different animal. As I pointed out, tennis and golf are much closer analogies and favour my argument.

Since you asked, I suppose I support the change to allow out of province players (although that is not in place yet). I think all the policing of which province a guy lives in is a little silly, and also difficult, as proven by the fact that guys are doing it already, even though it's not supposed to be allowed. It's particularly silly when deciding a team to represent us at the world level. If you want to maintain the rule about keeping all the players from one province, I think you have to do away with deciding our world rep from the Brier. Does it really makes sense to say to a team, "you can't represent us on the world level, because you all don't hail from the same place"?

I would agree that regional representation is inherent to the Brier and I wouldn't want to change that fact, nor would I want to change the idea of the Brier winner repping Canada at the Worlds. I kind of like the idea someone had that the skip has to come from the province in question to represent them, and other than that anything goes. I will acknowledge there is not a simple solution, but I certainly don't think some out of province players is the end of the world, and it's going to happen anyway. As long as one or two players have some connection to the province, I think the regional flavour of the event will still be there.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Unregistered


Peter,

I agree............it was a long post... Lol

Talking to you about this baseball thing is like talking with our friend Duncan about politics........we agree to disagree is the best either of us will give.

Hope we can continue this in person at Tankard..

Congratulations on you new position with the slams......you were made to handle a microphone in front of a crowd.

Best to Leroy.

Take care,

Jt

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Congratulations to Team Rumfeldt! They punch their ticket to the Tankard with a 7-2 win over Wayne Middaugh.

The last spot gets filled in the B-Final: Team Wayne Middaugh vs. Team Scott McDonald. McDonald has had a dream weekend so far, eliminating Howard, Bowser, Ferris and Homan. Do they have one more left in them?

CurlingGeek has the game covered. 5pm eastern:

https://games.curlinggeek.com/broadcast/37

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Too bad. Team McDonald used up all their shots. Were not in the B final game whatsoever.

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Is it too soon to predict Wayne wins it and goes to the Brier? I think not.

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Middaugh has a great chance, but Epping might have something to,say about that...however, would be nice to see Cody go,to his first Brier...

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McCarrel was impressive this weekend.

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I think this might be the year kean or epping finally break through and win a provincial title. in fact i will go ahead and predict that to be the final. rumfeldt and balsdon will be the ones who might have something to say about it

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I think this might be the year kean or epping finally break through and win a provincial title. in fact i will go ahead and predict that to be the final. rumfeldt and balsdon will be the ones who might have something to say about it

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and middaugh of course

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quote:

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Originally posted by Unregistered
and middaugh of course

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Middaugh used a 5 player lineup this weekend.

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Wayne won't be there to start the week. Might be 5 or 6 games before he is there due to a previous commitment.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Unregistered
Sorry if I offend anyone in any way for posting what my thoughts after coming off the Challenge Round this weekend. These are merely my observations.

Tough way for Howard and other teams to go out this weekend in Challenge Round, but the teams that beat him both seemed up to the challenge and proved that they were good enough to compete with his team. Almost every team this weekend seemed to have the ability to play well and keep close with any other team.

The ice in Bradford in general was not exactly what was advertised. They claimed 3 - 3.5 feet of curl and speed being 25-25.5 seconds. In actual fact, the best we could manage was 2 feet toward the centre line and 3 feet off the line. Other spots were less than 2 feet. i.e. off the wall on sheet one and off the wall on sheet four, which were more like half a foot of curl to 1 foot of curl. Not ideal conditions , but playable. You really had to watch what you did on your release. That to me would favour teams who practice a fair bit and naturally have good releases. That being said, if someone had buried a draw around a tighter guard, the only way to remove the rock would be a run back. But this is why when you are on straight ice you need to focus more on controlling the front of the rings with your rocks so that when the players on the other teams bury a rock, you then can raise your own rocks.

The speed was good , I thought, and was close if not spot on to what was said by the club to the players who entered the competition. Friday night we were getting split times of 380 from back line to hog line at the beginning of the game and 395 after the first couple of ends. Unfortunately, the ice down the slide path started to fudge and the speed really came off when attempting a draw between the four foot lines. Still it was 380 down the middle, but you needed to navigate or go over the foot prints and a skips knee prints. Saturday morning you could tell that the ice crew had either lowered air temperature or ice temperature, or both, in an attempt to make the ice surface stay playable for 10 or 11 ends. That would make the ice a bit straighter than what it had been on Friday night.

My team went bang bang, but I thought the ice wasn�t bad at all. Bradford had a very clean ice surface. The Saturday morning games only lasted 6-8 ends, all games being blow outs, but our sheet held up better in that game. You would have to ask the curlers that were still in the competition after the Saturday 9am draw how the ice held up and whether or not there were picks due to foot prints or knee prints on the ice. I stayed and watched the 1pm draw and it didn�t seem like as many picked rocks, because normally you can tell as a spectator when a rock picks. Players will let you know when their rock has grabbed something or changed course after running over a shoe print or knee print by their reactions on the ice.

My closing thoughts/concerns are:

If the curling club textured the rocks prior to the competition, where was the curl?

If the reason for the lack of curl was ice temperature or air temperature being played with, why is the Bradford icemaker not informed of how to properly maintain the ice surface for the entire 10 or 11 end game? Surely there is a typical pebbling technique or pebble temperature that will allow the ice to hold up and allow the textured rocks to react on the surface that is being used.

Spencer Townley
spency44@hotmail.com

---

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Is is time we consider 8 ends for Zones and Regional playdown? Are we currently setting up our clubs to fail?

http://www.curlingzone.com/talk/?p=81

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Gerry,

Whatever happened to the suggestion by the World Federation several years ago to institute 8 end games as the new norm? I believe they cited television producers wanting a more viewer - friendly package due to the extraordinarily long 10 enders!

It may be due to my advance in years but I find myself leaning towards the 8 end game as the more attractive product. If you can't win in 8 ends (which usually forces teams to get aggressive right from the first end) then you probably shouldn't be playing in the first place!

It's interesting that the majority of curling games are 8 ends (club games, speils, slams, etc.) with the exception of provincial playdowns!

The impetus will probably have to come from the World governing body for such a change to occur.

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i hope we keep 10 ends at major championships. in 4 end games we see a lot of games ending after 4 or 5 ends and that is not the kind of game i want to watch either

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From what I'm hearing there doesn't seem to be much of a push from the WCF side to go to 8 ends and that's ok too. There's nothing wrong with doing 10 ends in Provincials, Brier, Scotties, etc.

All I'm suggesting is that we consider 8 ends for early qualification events where the facilities aren't designed to hold up for 12-14 ends. (2-3 ends of practice, 10 ends of game plus possible extra end).

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I agree Gerry. It might be a good idea to switch to 8 ends in zones and regions

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However...the road to a National championship should be paved with similar scenarios and experiences. The purpose of playing in a Provincial event is to prepare the ultimate winner for the next level...including the same game parameters and conditions. It follows that to prepare teams for the Provincial championship they should have like experiences and game rules at the zones and regionals! A ten-end game is a whole different kind of animal from an eight ender!

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quote:

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Originally posted by jaypek
A ten-end game is a whole different kind of animal from an eight ender!

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quote:

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Originally posted by jaypek
However...the road to a National championship should be paved with similar scenarios and experiences. The purpose of playing in a Provincial event is to prepare the ultimate winner for the next level...including the same game parameters and conditions. It follows that to prepare teams for the Provincial championship they should have like experiences and game rules at the zones and regionals! A ten-end game is a whole different kind of animal from an eight ender!

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