(by Terry Jones, Sun Media, in today’s Tankard Times, an official publication of the Canadian Curling Association. Read the issue for much more on this)
If you like your Briers with all 10 provinces, a Territories team, no Team Canada and morning draws every day, best you return to the scene of the world’s largest gathering of curling fans in history. Edmonton 2013 may be one last time for old times sake. Next year, the first Edmonton hosting since the ballistic 2005 Brier drew 281,985 quite likely could be the last one under the current format.
First the good news.
A proposed new format would feature the elimination of morning draws for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Now the bad news is:
There could be a Brier without Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island or New Brunswick. And quite likely, the winner of the 2013 Edmonton Brier will return to the event the following year, likely in Kamloops, as Team Canada as has been the concept at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts for the last 25 years.
“It’s possible the changes which are being proposed could come into effect after next year’s Brier,” CCA events manager Warren Hansen told Sun Media here Sunday.
Nobody is more violently opposed to a relegation concept and a Team Canada concept than Brad Gushue of Newfoundland.
And it’s not because he began this Brier 0-3 with opening weekend losses to Northern Ontario, Manitoba and Ontario.
The 2006 Olympic gold medal winner, in his ninth Brier, says relegation could cost the event the thing that makes it most special – the celebration of Canadiana.
“What will all the fans do? If you don’t know if your province or territory is going to be there for the full Brier week, you’re not likely to book flights and hotel rooms to go and be part of it and cheer them on,” he said.
“Look at the scene here with 10,000 fans in the stands and fans from every province in Canada. Why would you want to change this?”
The plan proposes to bring in Nunavut, Yukon and the NWT as separate entities as well as a Team Canada. For the Scotties they would introduce Northern Ontario, long a Brier “province”.
The relegation round would feature a one-day, three draw, round robin tournament involving the two lowest in the standings from the previous year and the two which were eliminated in the one-day event the year before.
The two winners of the event to be held on the Thursday in the Brier host city would then go on to begin play two days later at the Brier.
What do the players think about it?
Mike Gaudet, P.E.I. skip from Charlottetown:
“For me, I think it would be a shame for a team to have a poor week and ruin it for a young team the next year coming up that could conceivably be very successful.
I look back in the past when Northern Ontario had a very poor year and Brad Jacobs a year or two later comes up and makes the playoffs. What happens then, you know?
“But I think, realistically, it has to be up to the fans. It’s not like I’m going to change anything. But my opinion is, if it went to relegation or whatever, it might just force my retirement.
“It would be a different tournament, so once you go that way you can’t go back.
They have to be careful what they’re doing. I mean, are these fans here wrong?
“What would it do for P.E.I.? At the junior level we’re having a hard enough time keeping the juniors staying in it as it is. If the road’s that much harder to get to the big stage, then it’s obviously going to tail off, I think.
“There’s no uproar about it on the Island as far as I know.
If it happens, it happens. But I just feel bad. Like I say, if we have a bad week here and young Brett Gallant (former Canadian junior champion) is on the verge of coming up next year. He’d have to go through that extra process to play in it. That part of it isn’t fair.
“Why change it? That’s why I think they have to ask the fans. I don’t think that many fans are going to be wrong.
They obviously enjoy watching the format the way it is. But who knows what the CCA is thinking?”
Added last-place Scotties skip Kim Dolan of Charlottetown:
“We’re trying to grow the game and we need the challenge in order to get to events like these. Not just to be seen at a challenge round like that. We need to keep the young people interested because our numbers have dropped off a little bit.
“I can’t see it helping our province at all, in terms of keeping the interest of people who want to be involved in the game. I believe if it isn’t broken don’t fix it.”
Read the Tankard Times (PDF) for the full story.
