Sweep disorder

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This article was published 18/10/2015 (3652 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE –Call it Brushgate, Broomgate or the Broom Boom, but curling’s latest brouhaha is boiling over, and Portage la Prairie is feeling some of the splash.

Or, maybe you could say the dust-up over so-called directional brush fabric is, ahem, sweeping the nation.

Either way, days before some of the biggest names in curling came out to play at the Canad Inns Prairie Classic, more than 22 elite teams, including Manitobans Jennifer Jones and Mike McEwen, signed an agreement to suspend using a type of fabric critics say could have a staggering impact on the ice, and the game.

The World Curling Tour also issued a missive asking players to either keep those brushes in their bags, or invert the fabric on the heads.

The conflict is complex, hurtling out of the competitive world of equipment makers, and the teams whose curling fate rests in part on their brooms.

The blowup dominated the buzz at the StuSells Toronto Tankard earlier this month, as curlers called a meeting to discuss a new BalancePlus brush head that seemed to produce a level of steering control that some have dubbed “joystick curling.”

“It really kind of raised some eyebrows, that the brooms were doing things to the rocks that we’ve never really seen before,” said skip Reid Carruthers, whose team has opted to turn their Hardline Icepad fabric inside-out this weekend. “From there, the players all just said look, something needs to happen. We kind of feel that for the interim, what we’re doing with our brooms is just to keep the peace until we can figure out what to do.”

Turned out, the manufacturer agreed. Earlier this month, BalancePlus conducted its own experiments using the directional fabric, which runs more abrasively in one direction than others. Friday, it released videos and a statement showing stunning effects on a rock’s speed and curl.

For instance, BalancePlus said, its new head could take a rock set to curl six feet, and cause it to back up four feet against the curl, a swing of 10 feet.

The company stated it had asked curlers to return the handful of directional brush heads it sent out, and pledged not to make any more.

But it also claimed its head was designed to compete with another brush, and called on other manufacturers and players to ditch the fabric.

“Whether it was done on purpose or simply by mistake, hopefully all of them will Do The Right Thing and stop using directional fabric,” the release stated.

The target of that suggestion is the Hardline Icepad, which has been the brush of choice of teams including McEwen’s and Carruthers’ since last year. But online, many Icepad users defended the brush, saying it does not produce nearly the same dramatic results shown in the BalancePlus experiments.

For now, weighing the veracity of any of these criticisms is a little beyond this reporter’s purview. But the broomhaha touches, perhaps, on something else.

Since the seismic shift of corn brooms to brushes, curling has had relatively little of the equipment review and regulation that is common in other sports.

But technology is out there that could potentially upend the entire sport; veteran Team Howard vice-skip Wayne Middaugh has alleged the new heads that started this whole shebang are so overpowered, they could allow him sweeping solo to be more effective than famously furious Team Koe sweepers Ben Hebert and Marc Kennedy.

As far as Carruthers is concerned, bring the equipment discussion on. Just, er, find the right time to get it done.

“I totally agree that we need to have a discussion about rules and equipment testing,” Carruthers said after eking out a thrilling win over Koe in A-event play Saturday. “The issue I have is kind of the timing. We’re five events into the season.

“Ideally, for any team or any manufacturer, if rules were set in place before the year started, it would be easier for the teams that are using it and also the company to provide their teams with it.”

The good news is, with virtually all the top teams in agreement to put their guns away until the issue can be studied and resolved, things seem to be settling down in Portage at the Prairie Classic, which is set to wrap up with playoffs Monday.

At the StuSells Tankard in Toronto, “it was a huge distraction for the curlers and the organizers of the event,” Carruthers said.

“Here it looks like guys are focusing a little more on the curling. It’s definitely something people are still talking about, just not to the same extent.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca