A New Rule About Brushing

In this episode of "A Pane In The Glass Podcast" I highlight a new rule, hot off the press regarding, you guessed it, brushing! I'll cite the exact wording of World Curling's rule adjustment and this time it's NOT about the equipment but rather brushing technique. I have a sound bite from the skip of a team bound for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games and his team's preparation for curling's biggest stage! I end the episode with a surprise for a new listener who doesn't know his grandson has something to say. 

Chapters

• 14:40 Brad Jacobs Talks About Olympic Preparation
• 18:28 A New Listener Gets A Surprise Visit Via The Podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:18

Welcome to another episode of a pain in the glass podcast. This is your host, Bill Shearhart, coming to you from well, I'm not going to tell you that right now, and you'll understand a little bit later on. It has been an interesting week for curling because the international sport governing body, World Curling, has decided it's never the wrong time to do the right thing. And I'll refer to the timing of this again a little bit later. But World Curling has decided to implement a rule change. And the rule change has to do with slowing a rock down. Now, as all curlers know, uh brushing or sweeping has been used to help the stone maintain its velocity and possibly in a takeout situation help the stone to maintain its path, in other words, to keep it a little bit straighter. And there have been other ways to change the trajectory. And again, that's the wording that you will hear. So without any further ado, I will read the communique. It's not very long. World Curling, in consultation with the World Curling Athlete Commission, has introduced a new sweeping technique policy aimed at determining the acceptable effects of sweeping and removing sweeping techniques that cause unacceptable effects on the stone. The acceptable effects of sweeping determined in this policy are quote to make the stone go further and to hold the stone straighter while allowing for some enhancement of the curling trajectory close quote. The prohibited techniques now include those that increase the rate of deceleration, as I said, slowing the rock down of a stone, such as now there are three bullets here. Number one, single brush strokes standard or knifing orientation in brackets, using primarily a push motion. Second bullet, single brush strokes that keep the brush on the ice while returning to its original position. And again I'll embellish on that. And the third bullet, single brush strokes that lift the brush head off the ice before returning to its original position. These techniques, along with others, when used with the intent of slowing down a stone, are against the statement of principles and are now prohibited from use in competition. Game umpires have been given the authority to observe sweeping in world curling competitions, and should they see a violation, are empowered to remove the delivered stone from play following an official warning to the offending team. So there it is. That's the wording. And now I'll weigh in on what I think has really happened here. Now, first of all, first of all, a little bit of uh brushing 101. This whole idea of the push stroke as opposed to the returning stroke, well, we have much evidence to show that when the brush head starts relatively close to you and you begin to push it away from your body, the amount of downward pressure uh decreases quite dramatically. I'll just leave it at that. And therefore, when you return the rush, the rush, the brush to its original position, that return stroke is much weaker than the push stroke. And so it's this push stroke that's the uh area of contention. I must confess, I mean, I watch a fair bit of curling, as I'm sure you watch curling on television. And right now, as I prepare this episode, we're just uh into the uh finals of the playoff rounds, I should say, of the uh Grand Slam that's taking place in Steinbeck, Manitoba. And I must confess, I have not seen an athlete with a single brush stroke technique. Now, I've maybe I've been living under a curling rock, but I have not seen this. And I must confess, I'm I'm not necessarily I'm not really certain how a single brush stroke could slow a rock down, but that's not the point here. So when you're brushing, and I when I say you, I hopefully I'm talking to a club curler, perhaps a competitive club curler, uh please make sure that when you brush, as you move the brush head back and forth, that your last brush stroke is away from the path of the rock, either at the end of a push stroke or at the end of a returning stroke. That's all you really have to be concerned about. Now, as far as technique is concerned, I'll just weigh in on a few points here. When you keep your feet outside of your hips, and that's not necessarily the easiest thing to do, by the way, but when you keep your feet outside your hips, you're going to have much more downward pressure on the head of the brush, and of course, downward pressure on the ice surface. When your feet are below you and all you're doing is pressing down with your arms, you're reducing the amount of downward pressure for sure. Now, again, recreational curlers who are just enjoying the sport for the enjoyment of playing the sport, that's fine. You're probably not going to want to change your technique because to keep your feet outside the hip line is not the easiest thing to do. It makes it a little bit complicated from a footwork perspective, and of course, uh you're going to have a lot more weight uh pushing down. It's it's not not that easy to do. Now, a little bit about hand position. Now, one of your hands is going to be lower on the handle, so you try to keep that hand close, as close to the brush head as you possibly can. So that's all I'm going to say about technique. There are other things, but that's that's it for now in that area. Now, a little bit about equipment. The compliant material. So when you see competitive curling on television, they all use a material on their brush head. Uh, it's yellow in color, and it's simply referred to as the compliant material, the accepted material, the legal material. Uh Oxford Nylon 240D, I think, is the actual technical term for it. And so if you're in any kind of competition, uh not necessarily world curling, but uh, you know, in your district, in your province or territory, you will have to use that material. Now, if you are a club curler within your club, you are not obligated to do so. But I would encourage you to use the compliant material, and again, I'll just leave it at that for the time being. If you are going to be brushing and want to maximize the effort, it's important that the brush head material that you have chosen to use, whether it's the compliant material or not, uh, has two properties. It is clean and it is dry. If it is dirty and a little bit moist, I'm not sure if you it's worth brushing at all in some cases, because I've seen some curlers in recreational environments when I look at their brush, it's black. And when dirt builds up in the weave of the fiber, the weave of the fiber is what does the work. And when dirt builds up, uh you're reducing its effectiveness in some cases quite dramatically, or if the the material gets moist, it that decreases its effectiveness as well. It's a good idea, perhaps. I mean, the brush head covers are non-expensive, and most competitive curlers will have two or three so that they can keep uh you know two or three spares ready to uh put on the brush head for their next competition. And it's so easy to clean a brush head uh warm soapy water with uh say a fingernail file brush or an old toothbrush. Uh it really cleans up pretty quickly. Leave it overnight for it to dry, and uh it's amazing. And you can tell if the brush head is getting dirty before you even see the dirt. When the pitch of the sound changes, that change in pitch is because there's dirt in the fiber. So you might as well maximize it as much as you possibly can. Now you'll notice in the communique that world curling uh for world curling events, and I understand we have a rather important world curling events coming up in uh Italy. I think they called it the Winter Olympic Games. Now I don't mean to be facetious here. So it looks as though this rule change is going to be implemented uh at those games, and they have empowered the officials to go out on the ice and remove rocks now. This is interesting because I want to talk about officials. They are salt of the earth people, they're all volunteers, and there is rigid certification protocol for officials. They're not just sitting there freezing watching you play. They're helping you administer the rules, and that's an important term. They're helping the curlers administer the rules, clearing up confusion, and that's been their primary responsibility for as long as I've been involved. Well, it appears that that's going to change because for the first time they're going to have to adjudicate, well, brushing in this case, and be empowered to first give a warning and then go out on the ice and remove the rock. And the officials that I know are not going to be very comfortable doing that. And I think World Curling is uh painting themselves into a bit of a corner to have to get officials uh to change that mindset of their role in the game, to be willing to go out in the ice and do that. That's going to be a very interesting implementation, shall I say? So that's kind of the nuts and bolts of it. Uh stay tuned. It's going to be very interesting to see just where this goes. Um I will share one story with you. I love you, you those of you who know me well know that I love to tell stories. But I was coaching a uh a men's team at a world uh curling uh world championship, um, and uh we were playing a another country, obviously. So I'm protecting the countries here. But I told the players on on the team that if anything happens on the ice surface that concerns you, don't let it bother you. Come and tell me. Well, um I will call him John. John came to me and said, Bill, look at the second out there. Uh look at the way he's brushing. Uh that's not acceptable. So I said, Okay, John, just leave it with me. So at the fifth end break, I went to the head official. I'll call him Tom, not his name. And I said, Tom, we've got a concern about the second on the team that we're playing. We think that what he's doing is unacceptable. Now talk about diplomacy. This is what Tom said, and almost word for word, because sometimes you remember things that way. And he said, Well, Bill, I can handle this in one of two ways. I can go to him and change the way he's brushing and make him a far more effective brusher. Pause. He looked at me and said, Or, Bill, we can just let it go. So I got the message. I didn't need a building to fall on top of me. Tom, yeah, let's just let it go. And so I went to John and I repeated the words, and John smiled and okay, let's just let it go. So there's my my story. As I said, let's stay tuned and see where this is at. And who knew? I mean, we've gone through the different brush head materials, and then it's been foam density, and now we've got a change in technique. And this situation with brushing just never seems too late. I have the soundbite. Well, that won't surprise those of you who listen regularly, and thank you very much to those of you who do. This is a soundbite where Brad Jacobs, who is the skip of Team Canada for our Canada's men's team at the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Milan, Italy. And I'm sending this to you on uh Saturday morning, the 10th of January. And in Steinbeck, Manitoba, it is the playoff portion of the Players' Championship. Brad Jacobs' team is uh not going to be competing in the playoffs. They did not make the playoffs, which for my Canadian listeners might be a bit of a concern. But I want to hear what uh Brad has to say, and then I'll weigh in after we hear the sound bite. So let's do that right now.

SPEAKER_02: 14:41

All right, Brad. Uh, you finished the players with a win. Uh take us through what this week has been like for you guys.

SPEAKER_03: 14:47

Uh, what's this week been like? Well, it's been frustrating at times for sure. Um, we didn't have our best this week. We've uh we've had a lot of other things going on with the world behind the scenes. Um, something just happened, uh, so we're gonna go.

SPEAKER_02: 15:46

You guys are never supposed to work.

SPEAKER_03: 15:55

You guys are working on the middle of the training our brains out like cycle is getting ready for that big event in February. We're just lots of trouble, throwing rocks, sleeping in our own bed, good home cooked meals, being with our family, training lifting weights. We're gonna go in there strong, hungry, ready to go. I just have no doubt in my mind. What's really impressed me since day one, since I came on this team, is our ability to um step up to the plate when it matters most and and uh bring that that best version of ourselves. So I'm really looking forward to that in February. We'll leave it there. Good luck, Brad. Thanks, Debbie.

SPEAKER_00: 16:46

I know the team well. Uh I know the coach very well. It's Paul Webster, who was a partner of mine at the National Training Center and uh took over my position as national development coach. I have a world of respect for Paul. He has worked long and hard and diligently with this team with the goal of going to the Winter Olympics at some point. Uh he is very detailed oriented, he's very smart, and he has a plan for them. And I don't think there should be any concern about the fact that they didn't make the playoffs at the Steinbeck Players' Championship. And the important word there was mindset and training. Uh, they're training. Uh they know exactly what needs to be done to put their best version on the ice in Cortina. And so, again, to the Canadian listeners out there, worry not. But I will say that uh looking over the uh competitors on uh all the disciplines, mixed doubles, men's and women's, this might be the best balanced competition in recent Olympics. Um I can I can say that there's a number of teams in each of the disciplines who might be on the top step of the podium. So whoever those countries are, you're gonna have to bring your A game because certainly your opponents will. It's exciting times. Love the Winter Olympics, love the Summer Olympics, but I like the Winter Olympics uh especially. So let's see what happens. Okay, you've waited long enough. I'm not in Grand Bend. I'm in British Columbia, supernatural British Columbia. It comes by its uh adjective very legitimately. And I got here on train, the Canadian from Toronto to Vancouver, and then off to the island. And on that journey, I had the pleasure of meeting wonderful people. The conversations were stimulating and friendly. It was it was a tremendous experience to say nothing of seeing Canada from a very different perspective. I've driven across Canada, I've seen it by way of uh the Trans-Canada Highway, but seeing it from the rail lines was a completely different experience, and of course, as you might guess, especially going through the Rockies. And I met someone who indicated that there's a member of his family who was a longtime curler, and uh he's a first-time listener today. So, um, Mr. Katie, uh Lloyd Cady, uh, I met someone who has something to say to you. So let's hear that family member that I met on the Canadian. On the podcast this week, I'm very pleased to welcome a first time listener, and I hope first time long time, and he is a curler of some renown. Now, where did I learn about this? Well, uh, Mr. Ketting, I learned about this from a friend of yours. I'm gonna turn the microphone over to him right now.

SPEAKER_01: 20:22

Hi, thank you for having me on the show. Uh, my name is Eric Chislitz, and uh yeah, today I'm here to talk about my grandpa, Lloyd Kating. Uh so he has been a curler his whole life out in Saskatchewan, and uh he moved to Pembroke, Ontario, where he joined the Ottawa Valley Curling Association, uh the OVCA. And uh he was also in the Air Force where they had a curling team and they were uh in the Bongeville Ontario Championship where he he lost in the finals of that championship. Unfortunately, I don't have the year that this took place. Um I could get that information, but I'm currently on uh the via rail train uh with your host here. Uh he was also a member of the Governor General Curling Association, and uh he got a red jacket, if that means anything to uh some of the listeners on the show.

SPEAKER_00: 21:29

Well, Mr. Kenning, as you know, that's uh your grandson, and it was a delight to uh share some dinner with he and his lovely wife and your great grandson. Uh they're having a great time on board. They're they're here with us tonight as we leave Winnipeg bound for Vancouver. So, Mr. Kenning, very pleased that you will be listening to the podcast, and it was a delight to meet your family. Good curling. That Governor General's club to which Eric referred uh is a big deal. Uh you get invited to that organization, that group, I should say, and they wear red jackets. So, Mr. Ketty, you uh uh are a positive influence certainly on your grandson and people like yourself, the heart of curling. So I'm delighted to have done that for you. And as I said, I I know you're uh still a very young man at heart and spirit, and so good curling, whatever form that takes for you. So that's it for uh this week. I again thank you for joining me behind a pane in the glass. And uh, you know, one comment about the Olympics, and someone who I very much respect in our sport, uh, just within days of curling being accepted as a full metal sport, came to me and said, Well, now the tail will wag the dog. And I've used that expression a number of times, and this person, as I said, who I very much respect, indicated that uh the fact that we're a full metal sport, the game is going to change. Most of the changes will be positive, not necessarily all of them. And I'm just gonna leave that for now because I am going to do an episode on the Olympics and the chase for the medals, and we'll talk about the positives and the negatives about being a full metal sport. So please remember those words that great North American philosopher Charlie Brown don't focus too much on the things that make you sad because there's so many things that can make you happy. Until next time.