A Pane in the Glass Podcast

Bill Digs Into The Podcast Mail Bag

• Coach Bill • Season 4 • Episode 49

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It's time to dig into the "A Pane In The Glass Podcast" mailbag. I have extracted nine questions to answer as best I'm able. If you want see the questions, click on "Chapters" (above) to go those that are of special interest to you! For those who are hearing impaired, click on "Transcript" for a text version of the episode, remembering that AI doesn't differentiate words that sound the same so my name is "Bill Shearhart" on the transcript (perhaps after a life time spelling it for people, perhaps I should consider this phonetic spelling of "Tschirhart")!

It’s your turn! Send me your thoughts by texting here!

Speaker:

Welcome to another episode of a pain in the glass podcast. This is your host, Bill Sheart hart, Chartered Professional Coach with Coaches of Canada, coming to from the ancestral land of the Wassenick First Nations. That would put me in Sydney, British Columbia on Vancouver Island. As you can see by the title of the episode, it's time to dip into the mailbag and address questions that have been sent to me either by email or by clicking on the hyperlink at the end of the show notes. There are going to be nine of them this week. And I strongly urge you, if you would like to see what those questions are and hear my answers one at a time in an order of your choosing, then simply click on chapters beside the description of the episode on the show notes, and you will be able to do just that. Also, there will be a transcript available for those of you who have friends or teammates who are have a hearing challenge, and they can see in print what the episode is all about. So let's get started with questions from the mailbag. Question: What are the criteria for a sport to be an Olympic metal sport? Well, it's pretty straightforward. And here it is. For a sport to be Olympic, it needs global popularity, in other words, practiced in many countries and on many continents, a recognized international federation, adhering to anti doping codes, an alignment with Olympic values like gender equality, youth appeal, and cost effectiveness for hosts, with the International Olympic Committee evaluating factors like media interest, history, and integrity before final inclusion votes can be cast. Another common question asked about the Winter Olympic Games is how many sports are included in the game? At the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan, Cortina, Italy, there are sixteen different sports slash disciplines contested. These include traditional winter sports like alpine skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, biathlon, snowboarding, and newer additions such as ski mountaineering. So the answer is sixteen sports in the games. Now there is a difference between a sport and a discipline, and we'll take curling for an obvious example. Yes, curling is a sport, but there are three disciplines, and most of you who are listening to the podcast know what they are mixed doubles, men's fours, of course, and women's four person. Another question that has come my way from both listeners in the United States and Canada is about the support that the two countries give to Olympic athletes. And so we'll start with the U.S. It's under the jurisdiction of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, USOPC. As a mission-driven nonprofit organization that does not receive government funding, the US OPC takes a responsible approach to stewarding the resources of the United States in support of team USA athletes. The US OPC is committed to fiscal responsibility and financial transparency to ensure our stakeholders understand our resources are invested. Our primary purpose is to support athletes through direct funds or programs that support them while ensuring the health and sustainability of the US Olympic and Paralympic movement. The situation is somewhat different in Canada. Canada supports its Olympic programs and athletes through a mixed public private funding system that combines federal government support, targeted high performance investment, and private slash commercial contributions. Here's how it works from top to bottom. Federal government funding, Sport Canada. The backbone of Canada's Olympic system is Sport Canada, a branch of the federal government. A national sport organization, NSO funding. Each Olympic sport has a national sport organization. For example, Athletics Canada, Swimming Canada, and of course curling Canada. Sport Canada provides annual funding to these national sport organizations to support athlete development pathways, national teams and coaching, training and competition programs. Funding levels depend on performance, governance quality, and long-term plans. And as also part of that, athlete assistance program. Carding. Elite athletes receive direct monthly financial support, commonly referred to as carding. And typical amounts are a senior card in Canadian funds, $1,765 a month, and a development card, again in Canadian funds, $1,060 per month. Helps covering living costs, training, and competition so athletes can focus on their sport. Then number two, own the Podium, high performance focus. Own the Podium is a key pillar of Canada's Olympic success. It was created ahead of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, funded primarily by the federal government with some private contributions. The focus is on sports with strong metal potential. And what does uh own the podium do? It allocates targeted funding to sports most likely to win medals. It supports world-class coaching, sport science and medicine, international competition exposure, and data and performance analytics. This means not all sports are funded equally. Metal potential matters. Then we come to the Canadian Olympic Committee. The Canadian Olympic Committee is a nongovernmental organization. Its role, well, it leads Team Canada at the Olympic Games. It provides athlete services, mental health, career planning, transition support. And I'm going to talk later about transition support, athlete insurance and well-being programs. It raises money through corporate sponsorships, donations, licensing and branding, in other words, Team Canada merchandise. The Kenning Olympic Committee funds supplement, not replace, government support. And then we have provincial and local support. Provinces fund provincial sport organizations, training facilities, and youth development. Cities and universities provide facilities, coaching, and sport science. Many Olympic athletes train at Canadian sport institutes in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal. I know about those. Then we come to private funding and sponsorship. Many athletes rely on non-government sources, especially in less funded sports. And so there are corporate sponsorships, sport-specific foundations, personal fundraising and donations, university athletic scholarships, especially for NCAA athletes. And financial support varies widely by sport. Some athletes still struggle financially, even at the most elite levels. And lastly, coaching, science, and medical support. Canada invests heavily in support systems, not just athlete pay. For example, national coaching certification programs. I know a lot about that. Sport science, nutrition, psychology, and injury prevention, and integrated teams at Canadian Sport Institute. So in summary, Canada's Olympic support system is built on federal funding through Sport Canada and athlete carting, targeted medical investment, own the podium, private and corporate funding, Canadian Olympic Committee and sponsors, and lastly provincial and institutional support. This model prioritizes high performance and metal outcomes while still maintaining a broad athlete development pathway. Now it's it's different in other countries, and I would suggest that if you reside in some other country besides Canada and the United States, you might be interested in how your country supports your Olympic program. But that's how it's done in Canada and the U.S. Now I said I would come back to transition support. A lot of people, through no fault of their own, don't realize, and I'm not trying to catch you to pat athletes on the back, but those athletes that we take such pride in seeing perform every four years really do sacrifice many aspects of quote-unquote normal life in order to train. And they really are rock stars when they get to the Olympics. And it's it's a high to get to the Olympics. I've had opportunities to coach at the Olympics that I uh turn down for a variety of reasons. Not the best decisions in the world, and I still, even at my age, hope one day to get there, but I'm running out a runway. But I digress. Um, so these athletes, when they return from the Olympics, and for in many cases, they return to a life that uh is is quite different for them because they aren't training as an elite athlete hoping to go to the Olympics. And the challenges are many, and the the challenges are steep, and there is help for those athletes to transition back to being a uh regular citizen of uh Canada. And and I know that the United States does the same thing. So those were very good questions about Olympic support. Since we have been talking about funding, we'll uh stay down uh that line of uh of questioning for just a moment. And I know that uh many people have asked me about the curling teams that they see participate in events on television, such as the uh Grand Slam events. Well, interestingly enough, they in a nutshell are responsible for all their own expenses. When they participate in events, again, like the Grand Slam, they are not paid to be there. They are there because they have earned that spot, whether it's tier one or tier two. But the uh the funding is self-generated. In other words, they have to find their own sponsors, or it's out of their own pockets. And so when you see those athletes and they're starting to look like Formula One racers, it's because uh they have uh been able to secure sponsorship and in response to that uh contribution from sponsors, uh, they want to advertise those sponsors. And there are rules from event to event as to how that advertising takes place, and it can be very specific about where this the cresting, if I can use that term, is placed on the curling uniform, uh how large it can be, uh, et cetera, et cetera. Now, I want to draw a distinction. You know how I am about words, words matter. Let's not go down that rabbit hole right now, but there is a difference between a sponsor and a patron. And quite honestly, some of the athletes, uh, and and if they're an individual athlete or a team situation, uh, there will be kindly individuals who will simply uh uh don't want any kind of recognition. They want to support the athlete, they're not expecting anything in return. It's just the reward of seeing an athlete or a group of athletes progress in their career, and they are patrons, and it's a patronage. Sponsors, on the other hand, and they're not uh second-class citizens, because sponsors can have a good heart very much like patrons, uh, but they do expect uh something in return, uh, not financially necessarily, although sometimes a team will uh uh underwrite a contract where if money is won by the team, it is shared with the sponsor. Well, I think that's fairly rare. But the sponsor uh wants a visibility, and we see that all over at our events on television. And so, as I said, some of the teams are very successful in getting sponsorships, and they end up, as I said, looking like uh formula uh car drivers. So that's the situation in curling. I'm trying to avoid the word elitist. Um, as uh curling teams progress and they realize that they've got a chance to uh really move down the performance trail, it it's very costly. And I hate to see teams and athletes have to shy away from that because they just simply can't afford that. And that's why there are so many athlete uh uh support programs out there as well. So uh again, I I hesitate to use the word elitist, but I have had people come to me and say, you know, you talk about your sport being for everyone. Yeah, that's the way it starts out, but that's not the way it continues forever. So well, they may they make a they make a point on that. So that's my reply about uh uh the cost of curling, so to speak. Here's a great question. And I want to thank the uh individual who asked it. And this person wanted to know if frost on a sheet of curling ice is considered debris. Now we know that brushing is to remove any kind of debris that might influence negatively, obviously, the path of a rock, but is frost that naturally occurs on the ice, and it's always recurring because of the championship ice that uh is provided for our major events. We don't see frost very often, and I don't want to get into what what causes it on a sheet of curling ice, but sometimes, and I know enough about it that the difference in moisture content in the air and the temperature and the air movement and all of these other factors, Greg Owascu would answer that much better than I possibly could. Frost is part of our game, and can can frost uh be considered uh a debris? Well, that's an interesting question, and it's one that uh has not been dealt with uh openly in any event, and I'll speak very personally uh with a uh team that I coached. Uh uh we were uh quite successful in that particular province. Uh, were we the most talented team? Uh well, we tried really hard, but I gotta be honest and say, no, we weren't the most talented team, but we did make it to the national competition, and we developed a uh a brushing system where we actually used frost. Now, it was not to slow the rock down. I want to be very clear about that, but we found a system where we could uh uh uh influence the trajectory of a rock, and and we used the frost to do it. Now, again, I want to emphasize the fact it was not to slow the rock down. And as a team, we talked a lot about it uh because we did not want to break any uh rule uh by letter or uh uh because of uh ethics, and and so we we were we were very clear in our own mind that what we were doing was was legal and it was ethical and it was in the spirit of the game. Anyway, um uh here we here we are again. Uh can you use frost? Again, not to slow the rock down, which I think was happening with the rule change by world curling. And if you listened to the last episode, we talked about that ruling. Um but to answer the the question of the person that posed it, well, that would be my answer, and it may not be a complete answer. And and if there's anybody out there listening who wants to weigh in on that aspect, but is frost that naturally is it's we felt it was part of the ice, and if we can brush the ice, help to maintain the velocity of a rock, or to to affect its trajectory that it was ethical to do so. So a rather convoluted answer, but there it is. Another listener asked about the difference between professional and amateur athletes and professional and amateur teams. Well, again, this was this is not factual in any regard, this was simply my opinion, and again, I'm interested in how you feel. And so here's my take on it. And one of the things that I say is when an athlete, either in an individual sport or if it's in a team sport, when they turn professional. And so let's let's take hockey, for example, and uh uh a young athlete, male or female, love women's hockey. I think maybe the best hockey that I ever see is uh when Canada plays the US women's hockey. They it's tr terrific. Anyway, big supporter. But when an athlete, again, we'll think about hockey, when a hockey player uh gets drafted and signs that contract, almost instantly they're playing for a very different reason. Now, make no mistake, uh it is all about. Excellence of performance, winning the championship, and that will never change because that's ingrained in athletes. But they really are playing for a very different reason. They are now a professional. It is now their livelihood. It's a business. And I'm gonna offend some people here, and and and I don't do it to be offensive, but I I really shake my head when fans of a of a sport, when uh a player on their favorite team has a chance uh to uh uh uh sign a contract with another team for a considerable increase in salary, and the player uh uh when when he is con he or she is allowed contractually to do that, they go to another team, and in some cases they are vilified by the fan. That's just not fair, because I would say that 99.9% of those fans, if they were in the same position, would do exactly the same thing. You know, the lifespan of a professional athlete is is rather short. I know they make a lot of money, but they've earned that right to make that money. In some cases, they're the best in the world, and we tend to reward people who are the best at what they do. Not in all cases, but in most cases. You always remember they're playing for a very important reason. In fact, one of the things I say is that when you you know root for a professional team, and I have favorite teams this afternoon. Um I'm going to watch uh the uh uh the Sunday games in the the wild card round of the NFL playoffs. Um my team last night lost to Dub Bears of Chicago, but but I'm cheering for a group of independent business people. Are they really affiliated with the you know the city that they represent? Well, in some cases they are. I remember Jerome Ginla. Now, I I spent wonderful years at the National Training Center in Calgary, so I was a Calgary Flames fan. And Jerome Ginla was the heart and soul of that team. In fact, uh, when he when he was uh finally traded near the end of his career, he he wore number 24. I think I've got that right. And that next morning at on one of the local stations, you gotta listen to this because their their favorite player just was traded. He was number 24. And the uh the weather person said, Well, the temperature this morning in Calgary is minus 24. Well, of course, that wasn't the temperature, that was a comment about Jerome McGinla uh leaving for another team. And and Jerome McGinla had every right to do that. Whereas amateur athletes, well, they're playing for a very different reason. It may be for their club, their school, whatever. My favorite sport to watch on television is college basketball. And since we're right into the heart of college basketball season right now, in fact, this this afternoon, there's I think I've recorded three games. Uh my favorite university, Michigan, has one of the best collegiate basketball uh teams this year, and I think they're playing Wisconsin. They played last night, but I recorded the game, so I'm going to be watching that later today. And so that's my answer. Um and I think a professional athlete also assumes a responsibility. I'm not sure uh just to what extent they regard that, but since they're in the public limelight, I think they have a responsibility of integrity to maintain their professionalism because there are uh eyes of very f of young athletes who are in the formative aspect of their careers, and they watch what the professionals do and what they say and how they deport themselves. So again, a little bit of a convoluted answer, but that's how I feel about amateurs versus professionals. Since last week's episode was about a rule change or a rule adjustment, one of the uh listeners asked, Well, is it necessary for our recreational league to adhere to all these rules about five rock and no tick and these brushing? Well, the answer is very simple, and I should have included it last week in the episode. Your jurisdiction. That's a $50 term for your league, your group, whatever level of compete it happens to be, it might be absolutely just for fun, or you're keeping track of wins and losses, or wherever it happens to fit in. So here's my take. No, you don't have to abide by those rules if your group doesn't wish to do so. If it's not enhancing your experience, and that's the criterion I'm applying here. If it doesn't enhance your experience, your collective experience, you are under absolutely no obligation to use the rules that you're seeing in the rule book. But you are, you do have an obligation to the first page of the rule book, and that's the code of ethics. That's what you adhere to. But if you don't want to have a no-tick rule or you don't want to have a free guard zone rule, you you don't it's not in your best interest to worry about whether it's a three-rock, four rock, five rock, or any kind of number of rock rule, you do what's right for your group. So that was the answer that I gave to the uh listener that asked about it, and I'm glad that that person did because I should have included that last week in the episode. And if you haven't listened to last week and you don't know what we're talking about, world curling has made a change to brushing technique. Most of what we've been hearing about brushing has been with equipment. Well, this one's not about equipment, this is about brushing technique. So if you are interested, listen to last week's episode, A New Rule About Brushing. Two more questions in this mailbag episode of a pain in the glass podcast. And this penultimate question refers to strategy. And I've dealt with this before, and the listener wanted to know if there's much that a recreational curler could learn about the strategy employed by those elite teams. I'm going to answer it, I think, in a somewhat unusual fashion because I'm going to give you an activity. When you play your next recreational game, pay attention to the number of shots. You got 16, eight of them for your team, eight for the other team. The number of shots that are designed to either remove a shot rock from your opposition, or for your team to put a rock in play in a shot or scoring position. It may not be for shot rock, it could be you know second shot, third shot, whatever it happens to be. Then when you watch the next game on television, do the same thing. Of the sixteen rocks that are being played in an end, count the number of rocks that they'd choose to play for the same purposes. To either remove shot rock from the opposition or to be shot. I think you're going to find that the difference is quite dramatic. Most of the shots I'll save you the the the time here, but please uh test it out for yourself. In a recreational environment, most of the shots that are played are played to either remove shot rock or to be shot rock. For the teams that you see on television, it's uh the of the 16 uh rocks that are played, uh the the majority of them, I'll just I was gonna say the vast majority, and I think that's a little uh over the top, but the majority of the rocks are not for that purpose. Now, what's the difference? Well, the difference is skill and and uh and experience. They can wait until late in the end uh to play those multiple run back takeouts and hits and rolls and all of the finesse shots. Uh, you probably don't have that level of skill and experience, and you've got to take the opportunity as it uh presents itself to do exactly what I said remove shot rock or or be shot rock. And so it the strategy, therefore, is very different. So, again, not to sound trite about this when you watch on television, just sit back and enjoy what you're seeing. These are the best athletes. And now we come to the last question, and the question was about the ice surface upon which those elite teams play. Is it different from the ice surface that uh we would play in a curling club? Well, it's a really easy answer. It's dramatically different for a variety of reasons. Most important reason is that when you see uh events on television, each sheet is prepared and I'll use the term from scratch. In other words, when the game is over, the ice technicians and his or her staff take the pebble right down to flat, and all of the pebble that is reapplied is designed very precisely in size and shape for the next game, depending upon oh, a grocery list of factors, and I am certainly not qualified to go through each one, but I know enough about it that the temperature in the building, and then when it's filled with uh 3,000 people and the body heat that they bring into the building, it it's it really becomes a science. But the most important part is that it's a fresh sheet of ice every time. In your curling facility, that's not the case for again pretty obvious reasons. I'm I'm going to tell you something from my experience. When I was at the National Training Center in Calgary, I played in a league at the Calgary Curling Club. Uh Jamie Barassa was the ice technician, and his crew worked every night. It might have been one of the busiest curling clubs in the world. And there wasn't time through the day because it was league after league after league after league. And so they prepared the ice like championship ice overnight. And our Wednesday morning senior league, especially if uh my team had the 9 a.m. draw, I knew that I was playing on championship ice. And what that led me as the skip of the team, I knew that I could play, I mean, might not have made the shots, but I could at least call all the shots in uh the repertoire. You could the ice allowed us to make all the shots. On occasion, and let's say that was at 9 a.m., as I said, if if I went back and filled in uh for one of the athletes in my program, and they were in the 9 p.m. draw, on that same sheet of ice upon which I played in the morning and I was skipping, I would have to skip entirely differently. Uh the the biggest negative factor is pebble buildup. Now, Jamie and his crew did not have time to remove pebble. Uh they would re-pebble, but they didn't have time to remove pebble, and they did the best that they could. And pebble buildup is is the the crab grass and the lawn of uh of ice in in curling. And that's what makes it very different at your curling facility. Play the shots that the ice gives you. If you were to play on championship ice, you would find that weight control is at a premium because you can miss the the broom at your club and kind of get away with it if you didn't have you know exactly the right weight. You miss the the shot by not delivering the right weight on championship ice, you're gonna miss the shot. It's it's it's very different. Now we won't talk about rocks, uh, that maybe that can be for another time. So that's the answer to the question about championship ice and curling club ice. There's an excellent video on YouTube, one of my favorite uh places on the internet, about how they make championship ice. So search on YouTube and just search championship curling ice and you'll see how they do it. Those were the questions that were posed uh my way from various listeners. I hope you found my answers uh interesting. I did my best to be as accurate as I possibly could, and in some cases, of course, I weighed in on some comments, but I do want to make one correction. Jeroma Ginla's number was 12, not 24. And so that early morning weather reporter uh after Jerome uh went to another team, he said it was now minus 12 in Calgary. So I want to make that uh that clear. Sometimes a professional athlete will give a team a hometown discount, especially if uh that sport has a a salary cap, and if that player is perhaps one of the best players in the team and has the uh highest uh uh salary, uh the next contract uh might leave room for the team to hire other players and put uh the best players around him or her for the strength of the team. So good for any professional athlete that would do that. Now, before I leave you today, I have uh an well, I think it's an exciting announcement about the podcast. Now, if you see the podcast by going to uh uh the website uh triple W a Pane in the Glass Podcast dot buzzprout dot com, and you're taken to the episode uh of your interest, you'll notice that there are show notes, and sometimes I have divided the content of the episode into chapters. Well, there's another word that you'll notice today, and it's transcript. And exactly as the term implies, uh it's that for that episode, and it was the last episode, the one about the the rule change with uh brushing, uh you can see what was said during the episode. And the reason that I'm very delighted to do that is I know that there are hearing impaired curlers out there. I've I've done a clinic for hearing impaired curlers, and I've always felt badly that uh my podcast isn't going to help very much if you can't hear it. But now you don't have to hear it, you can see the transcript. And so if you know of uh it doesn't have to be a curler, of course, but if you know someone that you think would be interested in the podcast and they do have a hearing challenge, uh please direct them to the podcast and click on transcript and they will be able to uh to see it uh in print. And so I'm very, very pleased to do that. And if some of you are seeing it as opposed to hearing it, my email address, of course, coachbill at hey.net. That's coachbill at hey.net. I'd really be delighted to know that uh you're enjoying seeing the transcript. Okay, folks, until next time, you know what I'm gonna say. That great North American philosopher Charlie Brown. Don't focus too much on things that make you sad because there are so many things that make you happy. Until next time.