Saturday, February 9, 2002
Rocks around the clock
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
SALT LAKE CITY -- Ray Kingsmith should have lived this long. The man who probably did more than anybody else to get curling into the Olympic Winter Games should have been here to witness this.
Curling has been in the Olympics before. But never like this.
Thanks to Kingsmith, curling made its debut in Calgary in '88 as a demonstration sport. But the world paid no notice.
Four years later in Albertville, again as a demonstration sport, the French went out of their way to hide it at the end of some almost inaccessible mountain road with conditions so bad that Kevin Martin ended up making the ice one day.
Four years ago in Nagano, curling became a full-medal Olympic sport. But the games were in the middle of the night and, other than Canada, the rest of the world didn't see much curling action. NBC ran but a few minutes of highlight footage a day. But here ...
Ray, you should be here today.
Is the Excited States ready for this?
Hours and hours of curling on TV?
CABLE OUTLETS
Using cable outlets CNBC and primarily MSNBC, there are 127 original hours of curling scheduled in the U.S., plus late-night and overnight repeats. A total of 21 complete games of the 98 scheduled will be shown from start to finish.
Of course, most of this will be lost on the Americans if Kari Erickson's rink and/or Tim Somerville's crew don't make it to the medal round. The Americans hired Calgary's Ed Lukowich as athlete development director to prepare the two teams for Salt Lake 2002.
Canadians will be front and centre delivering the sport to the Americans. Longtime Brier play-by-play man Don Chevrier, and Don Duguid, who has been the CBC curling colour commentator for years, are working the Olympics together.
But it's not just the U.S., it's happening in the U.K., too.
"BBC digital will show every single session match. There was a lot of interest out of Nagano. It pretty much caught on,'' Neil Wilson of the Daily Mail says.
The sport has already had unprecedented coverage in the U.S. just leading into these Olympics.
USA Today made curling the cover story earlier this week with the headline 'Will Curling Sweep The Nation Prime Time?'
Curling was featured in the publication Around The Rings here yesterday.
First paragraph: "Who would have thought that moving stones would become an Olympic sport.?''
Not all media outlets are getting all lathered up about curling, I must report.
Salt Lake City Weekly gave a page to curling but the headline read: 'Winter Snoozeland.'
The report says at least the biathlon "has guns. Young males love guns.''
Curling it describes as "about as much of an edgy sport as landscaping.''
The story didn't stop there.
"Referred to as 'chess on ice' (or `go fish' with brooms'), curling is two teams of four players sweeping an ice sheet in feverish hopes that a 42-pound granite stone will eventually slide into a scoring circle. This lasts three hours and they don't even have guns.
"NBC has curling play-by-play man Don Chevrier, known to dozens as Canada's 'Voice of Curling.' Just imagine the ribbing this poor bastard has to take from the other analysts in the after-hours lounge: `Hey, Don, how do you keep up with the fast-paced action out there? It's like a Ouija board! Can you slide those pretzels over here? I've got three hours.' ''
Curlers are used to this kind of talk. There isn't a Canadian sportswriter who hasn't made fun of the roaring game. But Canada's Olympic skips think it's just a matter of people who have never seen the sport before being exposed to it.
"I think we've proved in Canada that the nature of our sport is very appealing TV-wise,'' said Edmonton's Kevin Martin after arriving here and discovering the extent of the TV coverage.
"It's great that we're going to be able to bring that to so many more people and showcase what makes our sport as popular as it is in Canada. Having the players microphoned really gets you to know the athletes and appreciate the game.
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
"And I think being on the same time zone is going to be a big factor, not just in the U.S. but in taking the sport even beyond where it's been in Canada. I heard that from so many curling fans watching from Nagano - if only it didn't all happen in the middle of the night back home.''
Vancouver's Kelley Law says in a way the world curlers are coming here as missionaries.
"Americans just need to watch it.''
If there's bad weather in the mountains they may end up watching even more of it than NBC has scheduled. If there are delays or postponements of ski events, TV will have to go to live action somewhere else. You can hear the throws from the ski hill.
"Until the weather clears here, Bob, let's go to Ogden and the curling.''
2002 Games Curling Coverage
