Watching The Brier from South Canada

It is said that, in men's curling, the biggest honor... sorry, honour.... is not to win the World Championship, but the Canadian National Championship, known as the Tim Hortons Brier, because the level of competition is higher.

That statement is less true than it used to be, but it's not entirely wrong. Recall that last year's Olympic and world champions were different teams.... from Canada.  The world champion (Kevin Koe) wasn't even strong enough in his provincial tournament to MAKE the Brier!  The silver medalist both times?  Thomas Ulsrud from Norway.  A look at the World Curling Tour standings shows that the top five teams are Canadian - two of them did NOT qualify for the Brier!

Naturally, I want to watch this tournament, despite the fact that that there are no fun pants allowed.

2011 BDO Canadian Open! Part III

I was still dejected the next morning.  Here I was, in a hotel in Canada (where I had become Foursquare mayor) with what we discovered last night was a lot of girls junior hockey players and their families.  A group of the men met me in the lobby the evening before, and had commented on my pants.  Outside of the GM Centre, they were the first people to comment on my pants.  They, of course, referenced John Daly, and not Team Ulsrud, which I found odd in a country that I thought was curling-crazy

I was to discover this day that, although curling has its fans, my assumption about the entire country was incorrect.

On this day, I could not watch the tiebreaker rounds.  I was far too upset that they were even needed - had Ulsrud made his shot the night prior, there would be pants in the quarterfinals and no tiebreakers.  So Lisa and I had our breakfast at the hotel, packed and checked out.  Then, we visited two more exciting stores - Shopper's Drug Mart (for 400mg Advil LiquiGels, which are great and unavailable in the US) and Bulk Barn.

I have to speak a minute about Bulk Barn.  Most grocery stores have a bulk food section, where you can reach into the bins and fill you own bag of peanuts, or gummy bears, or cocoa mix.  Imagine, if you will, an entire store filled with those bins, with a much greater variety than you see in any grocery.  That's Bulk Barn.  And their prices are quite reasonable.  We came out of there with several bags of candy, baking supplies, nuts, and... macaroni and cheese sauce mix.  Let me tell you, there are trans fats in those things, and I LOVE it!

On this day, Lisa and I decided to do three things differently.  First, we did a better job hiding food and drink we brought in.  Scolded for the the day before, we weren't taking chances.  Second, we went in a different entrance, in the back.  We had All Freaking Access passes, and I was damn sure going to use it that day.  Finally, we brought in laptops and went up to the press area, where we could plug those in.  All excellent decisions.

Before we went up, though, I wanted to abuse use my media privileges to their fullest potential without getting kicked out.  So we went up, down, and all around in the arena.  I used Ottawa General exercise equipment.  I saw where housekeeping was.  I peeked in the stats area - I was looking for the brother of a fellow curler of mine, who was doing statistics for this event.  I never did find him, unfortunately, although I would like to congratulate Stewart Bond on his engagement, which happened on the ice of this very arena this very weekend.

We also walked around the concourse, and saw that Team Ulsrud was scheduled for an autograph session that evening, at 6:30pm.  I would finally get a chance to really talk to the guys, and get that picture with them.  I hoped.

Time to take our seats for the four matches to come.  Four matches to watch today - Glenn Howard in the lime greens v. Rob Fowler, Pat Simmons v. defending Brier and World champion (and nice guy) Kevin Koe, Mike McEwen v. Dale Matchett, and Jeff Stoughton v. Olympic Gold Medalist and rice eaters Kevin Martin.  Hey, Americans - did you recognize any of those names?  I was boldly predicting Howard for the win, but he had three matches to win in order to make that happen.

The crowd at the GM Centre was lively, and mascot Slider was working them like an expert.  The CBC was in the house, broadcasting the quarterfinal matches.  The semis were apparently exiled to a lesser network to make room for Don Cherry and Hockey Night in Canada.  Given that I am a fan of the loud wardrobe, I have to say I don't blame them.  Also, I'm from Rochester, where Don Cherry once coached.  Still, this was a big deal, and given that the All-Star Game was the next day, I'm not quite sure what hockey would be more important than a curling major.  Still.  Better coverage than it got in any other country.

Erin McLaughlin, Twitter friend and Curling News blogger for the weekend, joined us in Laptop Row.  We giggled and tweeted back and forth as we both did live updates of all four matches.  Each of them had a story.  For instance, the Koe match in front of me was a runaway from the start.  Koe started off with the hammer and took 1 in the 1st.  He proceeded to steal 4 in the 2nd, prompting me to tweet that he was "opening a can".  For those not familiar with the phrase, the whole thing reads "opening a can of whoop-ass."    They shook at 8-1 after 6 ends.  The other three games were closer, but still quite captivating.  I, personally, could never make such a draw to the button. Not at my level, anyway.

It's here where I will go off on a couple of tangents.  First of all, the ice at the GM Centre was among the best I had ever seen.  I would have loved to curl on it myself.  I had my shoes with me in case I got that opportunity.  Asham, Size 14, Red Brick slider.  They are a little small on my size 15 feet, and I do need to replace them, because they are wearing out (especially the gripper foot).  Still, I love my shoes.  My next pair will have sliders on both feet.  I can throw ambidextrous.  I just don't, because only my left foot has a slider.  I had a point here - I would love to see Glenn Howard throw on Rochester's ice, to see if he still looks as good as he did in Oshawa.  While I think he would still look pretty good (he is, after all, Glenn Howard), I do think the perfect ice made him look better.  That was professionally groomed ice.

My second tangent is a bit more introspective, but related to my first.  My delivery is pretty good.  I'm not a great curler.  I'm a good curler.  I occasionally miss the broom, and I occasionally flub a weight call, but in general, I make the shots that are called.  I tend to skip at my club, so the shots that are called are usually the shots I want to call, but that's another story.  After watching one draw.... one end, in fact!....I felt rather inadequate.  My internal comments were "wow.  I suck at curling."

This is not the reaction I had while watching Olympic curling on TV, and it was that type of reaction I got back to having after watching for a couple of days. I had a lot of trouble watching the Olympic curling, in fact, because I was second-guessing the Olympians and their strategy. (Especially John Shuster's, but everyone was questioning his!)  I wasn't usually wrong on my questioning of strategy - sometimes I was, of course.  And this day was no exception.  I thought some skip choices were flat-out wrong, and I was right every time.

During this round was also the semifinals of the Capital One Million Dollar Button.  For those who are familiar with the NFL in the US, think Field Goal competition, and you've got the concept.  However, instead of having to kick a ball through some uprights, the contestant needs to throw a stone unassisted and hit the middle of the house (the big target!), known in the curling vernacular as the button.  This was qualifying for six people from across Canada - closest to the button gets to go to the final the next day!  Six contenders tried their luck, but it was Teri Schiman, a non-curler, who almost landed it right on the button and got to come back the next day.

During this round, there were a lot of between-end pauses.  It took me a little while to figure out why, but I did eventually link the breaks to CBC commercials, thanks to my friends on Twitter.  Of course, these matches also had a halftime break (for the Million Dollar Button).  I was quite thankful for these respites - they gave me a chance to catch up on my Twitter updates.  Thankfully, unlike the first two days, I did not have to update the Facebook page as much.  I did have to update it a little - there were a lot of people wearing Loudmouth pants that day, and I wanted to make sure pants fans got as much out of their experience as curling fans did.  I will come back another day to discuss pants and curling fans, but know that there are clearly people who are fans of one or the other.

During the 2nd half, I was told by Erin that George Karrys wanted to see me in his office after the match.  I knew he was working on getting me together with the Norwegians, and it seemed like those efforts had paid off.  So, after the matches gave us the Stoughton-McEwen and Koe-Howard (Lisa the Curling Librarian's wish come true) semis, Erin brought us down to the office, which was just a locker room with tables set up - nothing glamourous, but completely functional.

And George met us there to tell us our evening plans.  Not only would I get my photos with Team Ulsrud, but I would be filming more footage for our little webcast.... at their autograph session.  And they'd be wearing Loudmouth pants (two of them did not want to - obviously downtrodden).  And they were really looking forward to spending some time with me.

So Lisa and I got a quick dinner, took care of essential business, and got back to meet George for our evening plans.

2011 BDO Canadian Open! Part II

We woke up the next morning, road-weary.  We were not staying at the same hotel as the curlers - I really wish I could have afforded to stay there, because apparently Team McEwen was a great taxi service - but no matter. We stayed in nearby Bowmansville, right across the street from my favorite store, Tractor Supply Company.  After breakfast, we got ourselves stretched and cleaned up, had an early lunch, and headed BACK to the GM Centre.


We missed the first draw of the day - it wasn't intentional that we did that, but it kind of happened that way - but made sure we were early for the 2nd.  It was at this time that we took a walk around the concourse.  There, we found the Saybon candy booth.  Now, these guys were giving away free candy to everyone - and it was pretty good candy!- but they were doing it while wearing Loudmouth Golf pants.  I had to get a picture with these guys, and they were happy to do it.  The brooms and the hats were all them, by the way, but they work exceptionally well. 


Back upstairs we went for the matches.  I was quite happy with my seats - I could easily see all five sheets of play - but did want some closer shots.  I knew that other friends (from Twitter) were sitting in the stands, and one in particular, Erin McLaughlin (@ErinMclaug on Twitter, and you should be following her) had been sitting in section 101.  I had resolved to go down and say hello, and maybe watch from down there for awhile, halfway through the match.


I never got the chance.  More on that in a moment.


I sat directly behind Sheet E, where Team Ulsrud was about to start.  Well, as I sat down, Thomas Ulsrud looked up, tapped all three of his teammates on the shoulders and pointed me out.  They all waved warmly.  I thought that was really really cool.  And I, of course, immediately gushed!  


Let the match begin! It was Team Stoughton as the opponent this time.  Sitting where I was, I could see all sorts of little things that most people wouldn't.  Ladies: Thomas Ulsrud does a butt shake before several deliveries.  Significant enough for me to see 40 feet away.


I had some issues with my Verizon Wireless phone service in Canada - it turns out I had data roaming turned off, but I didn't discover that until later - but I wasn't checking my phone as a result.  So when I looked down to see George Karrys walking around with a young woman in the crowd, I thought nothing of it.... until he looked up very quickly.  And then went OUT ON THE ICE and interrupted Thomas Ulsrud.  Presumably, his question to the skip was, "Where's D'Orazio?!"  That's right.  I caused a game interruption.  And then George looked up, gestured toward me.... and that's when I checked my phone.  He had been texting me, seeking me out, and Erin has been looking for me on Twitter - I was posting via WiFi from another device and didn't see her tweet.


George and Erin came up, got us, and directed us to a seat near the ice.  And when I say near the ice, I mean right next to the ice.  Think hockey player's bench-close.  And right next to sheet E.  You know, where Team Ulsrud is playing... Incidentally, George also scolded me (jokingly) for hiding when I have an All Freaking Access pass.  I underestimated what that meant.  Now I knew.  As we are walking down, he also suggests I have a Caeser with him  Apparently, a Caesar is a Bloody Mary made with Clammato instead of tomato juice.  Er, sounds delicious?


We all sit on the bench next to the ice - Lisa, George, Erin and I.  And the camera guy.  And the 3 or 4 people already there courtesy of the Capital One Million Dollar Button competition (more on that a bit later).  Turns out, George wanted to shoot a little video piece about my little Facebook page.  What fun!  


For those of you who have never been interviewed by George Karrys before, let me tell you that it is an experience.  He is a natural light-hearted interviewer, quick with the questions and the facts.  And he knows curling - not just Canadian curling, but curling everywhere.  He's probably the #2 fan of The Pants - let's be honest, I'm #1 - and he really wants some.  Anyone out there reading this want to send him some pants?  And, he was practically sitting in my lap, a fact that had Erin and Lisa giggling behind me.   


The interview itself was brief - just a couple of minutes - and should be posted in the near future at http://www.grandslamofcurling.com.  After the interview, George shot a bit more footage of us watching Team Ulsrud in their match.  One scene we shot was of George.... grabbing Torger Nergård and BEGGING him for pants.  Torger told George to ask me.... and then politely introduced himself.   Such a nice guy.


After all that, George, Erin, and the videographer took their leave of us, but insisted we stay on the bench to watch the rest of the match.  And it was a great match!   Once again, came down to Thomas having to make a double takeout.... only one stone went, and so Team Ulsrud loses a really close match.  


The bigger story.... one by one, each of the guys DURING THE MATCH slid over to me, chatted me up, and made sure I was going to be around for "some beers later".   Incidentally, Christoffer Svae told me I had to contact Arnold Asham if I wanted one of their cool argyle brooms, because "he had made an extra one."  So, Mr. Asham, you'll be getting a call from me! 


Oh, and if you hold onto the boards, you can feel the roar of the rocks.  It's amazing.


Ever so slightly disappointed, I knew that my new friends from Norway would pull it out in the evening session.  I took this opportunity to go for a little tour of Oshawa.  Aside: I am a bit of a grocery store junkie.  Every time I'm in a new city, I will go to a couple of grocery stores, pick up some reusable bags - I have quite a collection - and probably buy a few thing I cannot get at home.  In this case, those things involved a lot of dill potato chip-type things and strange candies.  It WOULD have involved the cookies we in this country know as Caramel De-Lites, sold under the No Name brand in Canada, but the Real Canadian Superstore wasn't quite super enough to have any left in stock.  

Back at the arena a bit early, we took a tour of the Oshawa Sports Hall of Fame.  Bobby Orr, who happens to be one of my favorite hockey players of all time - someday, I'll do a post on all the historical players I think are better than Wayne Gretzky - played for the Oshawa Generals.I had not known that.


I also found a lot of curling relics in the Hall.  The naughty-looking relic in this picture is but one example. It is a wooden curling stone.  It appears to sit on a ball-bearinged base, but I could not be sure.  I can be sure it doesn't weigh as much as the stones we have at my home club - the Rochester Curling Club, in Rochester, NY - because I of course broke the rules and hefted it for weight.


I decided that, for this draw, I was going to sit down in the stands, like anyone else, for as long as I could.  I was also resolved to stay out of their way - not get in their face and tell them where I was. I sat in the corner of the arena, close to sheet B, where Team Ulsrud was going to be playing.  With a 2-2 record, this was a must-win match for them.  Win, and they would qualify for the quarterfinal round.  Lose, and they were probably out of the running.  They were up against the 1-3 Peter Corner rink, so I liked their odds


While I was waiting for the match to start, I was spotted!  This fine curling event was graced with not one, but TWO mascot curling stones.  This one was far more in-your-face, and he was kind enough to take a photo with me.  Noteworthy is the fact that he is wearing Loudmouth Golf pants.  A look back at earlier photos from the event show that he was in black on the first day. 

For those who are interested in such things, he was wearing Danger-A, while I wore Blue and White-A.  Both fantastic patterns, but neither worn by the Norges, who hit the ice in Shagadelic.  


It was an exciting match, that once again came down to a last shot by Ulsrud.  A draw to the button and he's in the playoff.  His rock drifted about 6 inches too far... I'm sorry, I mean 15 cm too far... and gave Team Corner the win.  Needless to say, the team looked dejected.  I might have taken it even harder than they did. Probably not, I suppose, but I was really upset.
After that was done, Lisa and I walked around for awhile.  We took a stroll down to the Silver Bullet - the Canadian Open had their own Brier Patch, complete with Wii Curling.  I need to get me some Wii Curling.  However, not seeing anyone I had met over the week, including my new Norwegian friends, and not really in a happy-go-lucky mood, I left and went back to my hotel.


I was hopeful that the next day would end up being a gooder.  I had no idea what was to come.  I did know that Team Ulsrud would not be curling.  I did not know if they'd be at the arena anyway.  I was determined to be there, and enjoy as much curling as I could.

2011 BDO Canadian Open! Part I

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the 2011 BDO Canadian Open in Oshawa, Ontario. How did an American club curler from Rochester, NY, get such an invitation. Well, I think my Facebook page had something to do with it. It all started with this message from Norwegian lead Håvard Vad Petersson:

"We`re over to Canada three more times this season.
Edmonton in January, Oshua(?) near Toronto late January and Regina in April...
You`re on the east coast right?
H"

I knew where Oshawa was. In fact, in my youth, I had been to Oshawa, as a Boy Scout. I had to find a way to get to Oshawa for this event! A combination of the kindness of the Norwegians (two of whom have become my Facebook friends) who were eager to meet me, and George Karrys, the Director of Communications for the Capital One Grand Slam of Curling (among other titles he holds - hardest working man in curling, but more on that in a later post) and Fan of the Pants, who took care of credentials, got me into the event.

Now, I just had to get there. I was quite excited. This started to become even more real for me when I started getting the FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE press releases on Wednesday. I was quite honoured to be on such a distribution list. And yes, I did just spell "honoured" with a U.

The event started on Wednesday, 26 January 2011. There was no way I could get there so early, but I was determined to get there by Thursday night. I set off on my drive (my girlfriend Lisa in tow) on Thursday afternoon, leaving me plenty of time to get over the border, get currency exchanged, and get to the arena. However, that also got me to the 401 in Toronto at about 5pm. Anyone familiar with big city traffic should know that, although Toronto traffic is not the worst I've ever experienced (DC, Boston, San Jose all top it significantly), given that I had to be in Oshawa well in advance of an 8:00 match... well, let's say it was frustrating, and we'll leave it at that.

We arrived at the arena at 7:40pm. Temperature at gametime was 0 degrees outside. That's Canadian temps - it would be 32 in the States. How's that for an exchange rate?! After picking up our badges and credentials, I immediately checked the round robin standings - Team Ulsrud (the Norwegians, for those not in the know) was 2-0, and had three more matches to play, including one that evening (hence my haste in getting there) against Team

Martin.

Now, it is here that I pause. Most of us who followed the Olympics know who Kevin Martin is. He was the Olympic Gold Medalist in Vancouver - in fact, he beat Team Ulsrud to get that medal. I, having followed curling a bit since that point, knew about 1/2 of the teams listed. In fact, many of the best curlers in the world were there - World champions, Brier champions, current big-time teams. In Canada - or at least in this arena - these guys were well-sponsored rock stars. In the US? I'd be willing to bet that Glenn Howard could walk the streets of Chicago unbothered. Or even Pete Fenson.

For those who don't know, Pete Fenson was the 2006 Olympic bronze medalist, the skip for the US team, and a six-team national champion. I'm told he also owns a pretty good pizza place in Bemidji, Minnesota, which is the US capital as far as curling is concerned. I hope to visit someday.

After getting a quick bite to eat at the snack bar - I had a slice of pizza - I went to look at the ice. And I saw Team Ulsrud, warming up prior to their match. They had no idea I was in the building, and I had no idea I was going to see this.

My first instinct was to take a picture right from where I was, and so I did. This was a cell phone picture (as you will see, several of my picture are), but it was necessary to take it.

Now that I have seen them warm up, and taken care of all my necessary errands, it was time to find my seat. Of course, being a credentialed journalist, I could have just gone anywhere I wanted to. However, I didn't yet know this fact, so I sheepishly asked some of the security folks where I could go. They eventually directed me to the upper level, which is where I sat for the remainder of this match, as well as part of their first match the next day.

We have taken our seats, and the teams are introduced. Clearly, I am there to see the match on sheet B, but there are five going on. Most of the teams are wearing colours that are somewhat subdued, but there are exceptions. Team Howard, sponsored by Swiffer - and what a great curling sponsor! My next broom is a Wet Jet! - is wearing bright green shirts; Team Martin, right in front of us, are wearing Uncle Ben orange. Oh, and of course, The Pants. Loudmouth Golf is, of course, a major sponsor of Team Ulsrud, and tonight, they wore Blue and Gold. Ironically, I almost wore Blue and Gold, but settled for Red Houndstooth instead.

I did get up to take a quick picture with one of two mascots I saw over the weekend. I did not get this guy's name. He was a quiet fellow, but he enjoyed my fashion sense.

Let the curling begin! Ten teams on the ice.... each of them filled with curlers better than me. I am being a little hard on myself - I'm not as good as these guys, but I really am not that bad. As I discovered later, their skills - and the way they make tough shots look really easy - is partly a factor of the ice they were using. The match I am watching is the tightest, and the most exciting - Kevin Martin eventually won it, but he had to make a fantastic final shot in the 8th (a triple!) to make that happen.

However, I found myself watching two other matches as well. Team McEwen, who eventually won this event, started off with three blank ends. For those not well-versed in curling strategy, a team will sometime intentionally blank an end, to hold onto the hammer, until they can get more than one point in the end. Takes a hammer away from the other team, and makes for a bigger score jump. In the 4th end, McEwen dropped a 4 on Team Middaugh. He followed that up by stealing 3 in the 5th, which ended the match. That was just complete and utter dominance, and I found myself awed by that.

The other match I was watching was the Glenn Howard rink. After 3 ends, they were up 5-1 on Team Walchuk, a match he eventually won 9-2. After watching that utterly dominant performance, I thought to myself "wow, I hope Team Ulsrud doesn't meet them before the final, because they are REALLY tough!" I was right - they ended up being runners-up.

For those so inclined, defending Brier and World Champion Kevin Koe defeated local boy Mark Kean and his squad 6-3 in 7 end, and Jim Cotter took Randy Ferbey by the same score. The only thing about those two matches that caught my eye? Kevin Koe himself. His delivery is the lowest to the ice I have ever seen. I want to curl like that. I am not that flexible, so of course I never will, but it was impressive to watch.

At this point, I go on a search for the Pants. I have been clued

in that my badge is All Access (a term I fully came to understand about 18 hours later), and so I could go downstairs to the player's area and try to catch the team... and I saw Thomas Ulsrud, giving an interview. I waited patiently, of course, for him to finish, and then I introduced myself.

Except I didn't really. Thomas said something along the lines of "Heeeey, look who's here! I know this guy! Hi, Tony!" Er, ah, um, eee.... yeah, he knew who I was. We made small talk for a minute, and then he had to run to catch up to the rest of the team. He did promise that we would get together later on.

And so went my first evening at the BDO Canadian Open. It

was a great evening of curling, and I was really jazzed for the next day's events. Nothing could have prepared me for what exactly it would bring.