Catching some attention

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This article was published 21/01/2010 (5978 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

First things first. American Olympic skip John Shuster needs to go on the record about the Hurry Hard condoms featuring the U.S. Curling logo:

"I haven’t even seen one," began Shuster, "so I don’t know if I’ll be on a poster or something promoting them."

There was the hilarious bit on The Colbert Report earlier this month — the irreverent host forced Shuster to apologize to his third for yelling at him during games — that brought his sport to a potentially whole new, younger and influential demographic.

"A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," admitted Shuster, not long after a practice session Wednesday in advance of the BDO Classic Canadian Open.

Promoting

Team USA has been on The Today Show promoting their sport.

Their honorary captain is San Francisco 49ers’ Vernon Davis, after the hulking tight end fell in love with the game after trying it out at a makeshift rink in California.

"We actually had a Skype conversation with him on Monday," Shuster said. "He said he was excited to get to know us and watch us. Can’t wait to see him in Vancouver."

There was an Associated Press story that ran in 117 newspapers across North America, including the Free Press, over the Christmas holidays. And just Wednesday the Los Angeles Times did a piece in an attempt to introduce the sport to the folks of southern California.

Wrote Chris Erskine of the Times:

‘It seems medieval, almost, or a scene out of Harry Potter. You play it on ice, with brooms and ginormous pucks the size of my dream burger. All it really needs is flying monkeys. Curling is like something they invented at the University of Minnesota, on a wintry day when they’d all been drinking a little schnapps and no one could find the Twister…’

Through all this publicity — some bad, most of it good — Shuster and his Chisholm, Minn.-based squad of Jason Smith, Jeff Isaacson and John Benton have been front and centre playing Pied Pipers in an attempt to draw more attention to a sport Americans seem indifferent to, save for an Olympic year.

Yes, four years ago in Turin the Americans — Shuster was a member of Pete Fenson’s bronze-medal winning team — captured the fascination of our neighbours to the south.

Former president George W. Bush is said to have watched the Americans’ final game while aboard Air Force One while a USA Today online poll suggested curling was the sport most Americans enjoyed watching at the Olympics.

But despite that occasional fascination there are only 135 curling clubs in the U.S. — by comparison there are 123 in Manitoba alone — with the game drawing about 13,000 curlers.

Even Shuster, admittedly, grew up dreaming of playing basketball before turning to curling at 14.

Now, however, the profile the game is drawing in the U.S. can’t help but grow the sport.

And while Shuster & Co. dream of Olympic glory just like Canada’s Kevin Martin or Scotland’s David Murdoch, they also pine for the day their sport takes hold of a bigger chunk of the American populace and earns greater respect.

"Being on The Colbert Report and on national TV to share our sport with a viewing audience that isn’t quite familiar with our sport and to see curling in a fun light without necessarily making fun of it was pretty amazing," said Shuster.

"The viewership of The Colbert Report is a little bit different than some of the things we’ve been on. We were on The Today Show showing one of their people how to curl, but The Colbert Report reaches people from age 16 to 60 and there are a lot of viewers around our age.

"Something like that Associated Press article that ran on Christmas day… it has to help. You know, it’s not easy to just build a curling rink in the States. But to get people out and have them curl on arena ice — like they do in Hollywood now — IS a big deal.

"The sport is growing in the U.S. and it’s special to be a part of that."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

 

THE BDO CANADIAN CLASSIC

At the MTS Centre

 

Draw 1 results

Martin 6 Schille 1

Burtnyk 6 Gunnlaugson

McEwen 8 Stoughton 4

Middaugh 7 Ursel 2

Howard 6 Matchett 5

 

Manitoba linescores:

McEwen 102 020 3x–8

Stoughton 020 101 0x–4

 

Gunnlaugson 102 011 00–5

Burtnyk 020 200 02–6

 

Thursday’s draws

9 a.m.: Koe vs. Ferbey; Gushue vs. Menard; Ursel vs. Schille; Shuster vs. Simmons; Ulsrud vs. Appelman.

12:30 p.m.: Martin vs. Middaugh; Ferbey vs. Gunnlaugson; Burtnyk vs. Koe; Stoughton vs. Matchett; Howard vs. McEwen.

4 p.m.: Menard vs. Schille; McEwen vs. Simmons; Uslrud vs. Gunnlaugson; Gushue vs. Ursel; Shuster vs. Matchett.

7:30 p.m.: Burtnyk vs. Appleman; Howard vs. Stoughton; Gushue vs. Middaugh; Ferbey vs. Uslrud; Menard vs. Martin.

 

DREAMING TEAM: Here’s Kevin Martin, skip of Canada’s Olympic squad, when asked if he allows himself to dream of standing atop the medal podium in Vancouver:

"I don’t think you want to do that. But do you do that? Absolutely. Do you want to? Probably not. But that’s just human nature. It’s no different than when I was a kid throwing little rocks on the kitchen floor and it’s like you’re in the Brier final trying to make that shot."

Martin, who opened with a 6-1 victory over Chris Schille of Edmonton in the Wednesday night draw, believes managing those emotions — especially with a young squad that hasn’t been to the Olympics before — will be vital leading up to and during the Games. Then’s there’s also the little matter of the pressure and expectations that come with playing at home and being medal favourites.

"I’m not sure I feel (the pressure) now, but remembering back to ’02 and ’92 you certainly feel it at the Olympics," Martin said. "But that’s a good thing, there’s no negative there. We put a lot of pressure on our athletes and we definitely want our hockey guys to win… that’s how we are as Canadians. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s all good.

"The most important part right now for our team is to make sure we follow the same process, the same guidelines that we started 3 1/2 years ago and try not to veer off that plan."

THE TEAM THAT LIVES TOGETHER…: The US Olympic team of John Shuster, Jeff Isaacson, Jason Smith and John Benton are a tight-knit group, In fact, Shuster, Smith and Isaacson all live together while Smith spends his summers in Florida.

"Jason and Jeff and I have pretty much lived in the same house for the last couple of years during this process," said Shuster. "You have to get used to everybody because we’re with each other all the time. But practising together and getting to know everybody like that makes us stronger when we’re on the ice. Maybe you can see if somebody’s getting frustrated before they actually show it.

"We do a lot of joking around and a lot of poking fun at each other…"

–Tait