Curling honchos eyeing the clock

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This article was published 28/03/2010 (5910 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SWIFT CURRENT, Sask. — The World Curling Federation will decide on measures to reduce curling games and even shorten entire tournaments next month at the men’s world curling championship.

Reducing games to eight ends from 10, eliminating extra ends and time outs and removing tiebreakers from world championship schedules are among the items to be put to a vote in Cortina, Italy.

The WCF recommends getting rid of time outs and tiebreakers, but wants to retain extra ends to decide games that are tied.

Curling’s world governing body has yet to give a recommendation on the contentious issue of an eight-end game. The motion was narrowly voted down at the 1999 world championship in Saint John, N.B., despite the urgings of then-WCF president Guenther Hummelt to pass it.

"It’s resurfaced because we hear more and more the games are taking too long and getting over the three-hour mark," says WCF curling development officer Keith Wendorf. "All the reasons you can look at, the games are taking too long to get completed."

Wendorf insists curling isn’t getting pressure from the International Olympic Committee to shorten games, but there is a general feeling that contests running more than three hours are too long for television and viewing audiences. Curling made its debut as a full medal sport at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

Elite curlers have experience with the eight-end game because they play that format on the World Curling Tour. Canadian skip Jennifer Jones prefers the longer version but understands a more compact game makes it marketable.

"I like 10 ends. I don’t know the reason — maybe because we have to come from behind all the time," she said. "We play eight ends all the time in the World Curling Tour and we like it there, too.

"If it’s better for TV and better for audiences, then I’m in favour of it."

Television broadcasters and advertisers will have influential voices in the eight-end issue because reducing the length of a game gives them less air time for their properties.

Where Jones digs in her heels is on the elimination of tiebreaker games. The top four teams advance to playoffs in world championships. Any ties for fourth are solved by tiebreakers.

At the Ford World Women’s Curling Championship in Swift Current, Sask., there was just one tiebreaker. There is the potential for two or three, however, which would push the Page playoff games back an entire day.

Wendorf says that is a scheduling and marketing headache for organizing committees, who are trying to sell tickets to a public wanting to see a particular game on a particular day. Also, eliminating tiebreakers will shorten tournaments by a day, which reduces expenses and travel wear and tear on teams in the course of a season, he explained.

If tiebreakers were cast aside, tied teams’ head-to-head records in the preliminary round would determine who gets into the playoffs.

Jones says no way. The 35-year-old from Winnipeg doesn’t like the idea of elimination from a tournament if her round-robin record is as good as the fourth-place team.

"I don’t like that at all," she said. "To me, you would never convince me that’s the right way to go."

Wendorf, a Canadian living in France, expects resistance from players on the issue of tiebreakers.

"Any player will protect any opportunity they have to stay in the competition," he acknowledged.

Each team currently has 73 minutes to throw all its stones in a game, plus two 60-second time outs. Squads are allotted another 10 minutes if the contest goes to an extra end.

Any rule changes voted in during the men’s world championship April 3-11 would take effect June 1 and would stay in the WCF rulebook until 2014.

— The Canadian Press