4:00

during the week of the Scotties and the Briar,

4:02

that's all that's on TSN. It's

4:04

three games a day, every day.

4:07

And so it just kind of incepted

4:09

me almost. It was just like, I would come home

4:11

from school, I would turn it on, curling would be

4:14

on, and at first you're like curling, that's a dumb

4:16

sport, I'm not gonna watch that. And

4:19

then eventually I got intrigued by it.

4:21

My school offered it as a program,

4:23

I tried it, I loved it. It

4:25

didn't conflict with hockey. A

4:27

year later, I had

4:29

quit hockey and I was curling full

4:31

time, and I was 12 and

4:34

never looked back. For

4:37

anybody that hangs around you, even

4:39

for like 10 minutes, it becomes

4:41

clear that you absolutely love curling.

4:43

But tell me if you can,

4:46

what it is that you love. Like,

4:48

can you put it into words, what

4:50

you love about it so much? Well,

4:52

I think, initially what you

4:54

love is the camaraderie. I

4:56

think curling is so

4:59

accepting of anyone who curls.

5:02

It's just like, if you're interested in our

5:04

sport, we're interested in getting to know you

5:06

and being friends with you. And there really

5:08

is a community aspect to the sport that

5:11

I think is unrivaled. I've played many,

5:13

many sports in my life, nothing has

5:15

gotten ever close to it. And

5:18

then I just think the game itself is

5:21

unlike anything else. I

5:23

think one thing that, you

5:25

know, I think people think is a bug

5:27

of curling is that there's a lot of

5:29

downtime, right? There's only 16 shots

5:31

in an end. You know, there's

5:33

a lot of time where the rock is

5:35

just slowly moving down the ice. But I

5:38

think what people miss is that

5:41

there's so much tension in curling.

5:43

It's just like, there's such a really cool,

5:45

it's not like other sports, they take a

5:48

shot. One second later,

5:50

it's either in or it's not in.

5:52

Curling, there's a whole swath

5:54

of time where you're like, this is gonna happen. It's,

5:57

I don't know, just the tension of it.

6:00

I think is really beautiful. And I think

6:02

people who don't watch Curling regularly don't

6:04

understand that aspect of it. And I think it's

6:07

one of the things I love so much about

6:09

the game is that there's so

6:11

much time to sit with your thoughts

6:14

and potentially want to die. And

6:17

it's, yeah, it's just great. Tell us about

6:19

like how far you got. I mean, I

6:21

know we sort of joke about in the

6:23

podcast, but you did stand out. Yeah, I

6:25

was pretty good for a time. I made

6:27

the BC Provincials 10 years in a row.

6:29

And I lost the finals a couple times

6:31

to go to the Briar. And

6:34

I have, I think, four bronzes

6:36

as well. So I was on the podium

6:38

quite often. Was always in the mix, but

6:40

could never win the big one. Always the

6:42

bridesmaid, never the bride, I guess, is how

6:44

they say it in sports parlance. But

6:47

yeah, my team was kind of in that 25 to

6:49

35 in

6:52

the world's range, which is about,

6:54

we were about 20th in

6:56

Canada for a long time, kind of around

6:58

that range. We won

7:00

an okay amount of money, enough that we

7:03

broke even. That's always the goal, really. Mike

7:05

McEwen talks in the podcast about making money.

7:09

And there are curling teams that cash checks, but

7:11

for us, we were just thrilled that for probably

7:13

a good six or seven years in a row

7:15

there, we didn't have to pay to curl. And

7:18

that was good. We

7:20

felt like we were doing pretty good then. So

7:22

yeah, I guess you would say that I was

7:24

pretty good. I was never elite, but

7:27

I was, yeah, I was in the mix. Did

7:29

you dream about being elite? Of course. Did

7:32

you want to be? Yeah, of course. So when did you

7:34

kind of come to that realization that that wasn't gonna happen?

7:36

I think it just, I liked too

7:38

much other stuff also. I

7:40

never wanted to compromise everything

7:43

for curling. And

7:45

I think that for the curlers now,

7:47

I think when I started, curling

7:50

was a different sport. I

7:52

started curling in 1998. So it was like just

7:54

when curling was getting into the Olympics. At

7:56

that time, there was still the

7:59

curling. they're

24:00

like legitimate celebrities there. And it's the same

24:02

thing in South Korea. The game has really

24:04

picked up their team. When

24:07

the Olympics were in Pyeongchang, that

24:09

was the South Korean

24:11

girls kind of unexpectedly won the silver

24:13

medal there. And so that became

24:16

a huge thing in South Korea. So

24:19

the game is really blowing up. And

24:21

I do think there are starting to

24:24

be people who are paying attention and who are

24:26

taking stock of this. The

24:28

grand slam of curling, for instance, was just

24:30

bought by a group

24:32

called the Curling Group, which is some

24:35

high powered investors, some

24:37

Canadian curlers who are involved. And

24:40

they really see curling as an

24:42

opportunity to really grow. All

24:44

the slams are both men and women. And

24:47

the Scotties final this year outdrew the

24:49

Breyer final on TSN ratings wise. I

24:52

think you could make the case Rachel

24:54

Homan may be the biggest

24:56

star in curling at the moment. They

24:59

just had probably the greatest curling season of

25:01

all time. They won the Scotties.

25:03

They won the Worlds. They had an amazing season.

25:06

And then I think inclusivity

25:08

wise, also extends to the

25:11

LGBTQ plus community. We

25:13

heard from John Epping in the podcast.

25:16

We actually had talked to him separately

25:18

about this too, which didn't end up

25:20

making it into the show. But just

25:22

about the acceptance of LGBTQ plus

25:25

athletes in the sport, how

25:27

people feel that it is

25:29

one of the more inclusive sports, if not

25:31

the most inclusive sport. We actually got some

25:34

tweets from people who were talking about there

25:36

was one tweet in particular that someone sent

25:38

to us saying that I was on my

25:40

way home from the Seattle pride spiel. And

25:42

it really felt like a great time to

25:45

be listening to a podcast about curling because

25:47

curling has really made me feel at home

25:49

as an LGBTQ plus person. Another

25:52

interview we did that unfortunately didn't make it into

25:54

the show, but we talked to Andrew Paris from

25:56

the BlackRock initiative trying to get people of color

25:58

in Canada more. involved in the game

26:01

and indigenous populations as well. So it's

26:04

one of those things where curling has

26:06

traditionally been a white sport and lots

26:08

of initiatives are happening right

26:10

now to try and get more communities into

26:13

the game. Um, and

26:15

certainly, yeah, from a gender equality perspective,

26:17

it's, it's right there. And

26:19

I do feel like curling has a great opportunity

26:22

to grow. And I mean, not to, I'm

26:24

not patting myself on the back here, but even

26:26

just how well this podcast did, I think also

26:28

speaks to, you know, people

26:31

are interested about curling, you

26:33

know, on some level, whether they're going to

26:35

sit down and watch an entire three hour

26:37

curling game, maybe not, but interested

26:39

in the sport, uh, certainly.

26:42

And, and I'm, I'm looking forward to seeing

26:44

it grow more and more over the coming

26:46

years. Well, you should pat yourself on the

26:48

back. I mean, for a game that's been

26:50

around since what, the 1500s, you're

26:53

the first guy to say, let's make a podcast about

26:55

it. Well, there

26:57

are other curling podcasts to be

27:00

fair narrative, but yes, narrative wise,

27:02

yes, for sure. Uh, I don't

27:05

need to pat myself on the back, but I am, I am thrilled

27:07

that so many people took a chance on this podcast on all the

27:15

things that come with it. You

27:17

know, I just, I heard from so many

27:19

people, so many non curlers who

27:22

said, you know, I, I knew literally

27:24

nothing about curling, but I heard the

27:26

words a curling scandal and I

27:28

was in, you know, and I just, I

27:30

thank all of those people for their curiosity

27:33

and uh, I hope they

27:35

enjoyed what we did. And

27:37

thank you for letting me come along on

27:39

the ride with you. I'll miss our weekly

27:41

chats about curling. Um, but

27:43

it has been such a lovely experience and I'm

27:45

glad to count you as a friend now. And I'm

27:48

really proud of the work that we did together. Likewise.

27:50

Yeah. I can't believe, uh, you

27:53

know, I think when I started

27:55

this, like when the germ of this idea was

27:57

in the back of my head.