Mickey Pendergast and Doug Wilson join Kevin for a Curling Scene Investigation from the 10th end of the 2017 world men's final between Canada's Brad Gushue and Niklas Edin of Sweden. U2LE means "Up Two, Last End". Link to The Curling News to follow along with video and graphics.
Friday, January 15, 2021
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
Examining Curling From A Different Angle
The inaugural episode of a new podcast on curling analytics, produced by the host of Curling Legends. Kevin Palmer is joined by Ken Pomeroy of Kenpom.com and Gerry Geurts of CurlingZone to discuss how curling teams are ranked. Ken comes from the world of basketball analytics and his team rankings can be found on his new curling blog, Doubletakeout.com. Official World Rankings can be found at the World Curling Federation and also available with further insight at CurlingZone/Rankings
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
Episode 72 - Terry Jones
Terry Jones wanted to have fun. As a kid he ran errands for the press box during the local baseball tournament and saw the thrill of being a sportswriter. Over his career "Jonesy" has covered it all, including succeeding Don "Buckets" Flemming as the curling scribe for the Edmonton Journal. Terry shares a secret to Don's success, reveals his own origin story, then weaves a history of curling in Northern Alberta, by way of his book World Curling Capital. A limited release, some copies are still available and can be purchased by contacting Curling Alberta. Terry was inducted into the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame in 2019. This episode also includes Kevin's commentary on recent discourse about changing the Brier and Scotties (69:24) and an excerpt from podcast episode "Run it Back: 1997 Brier Final" from Rocks Across The Pond (85:50)
Thursday, December 3, 2020
Episode 71 - Elaine Dagg-Jackson
Elaine Dagg-Jackson pursued her passion to coach curling. The decision led her to amazing experiences across the globe and eventually her dream job as National Women's Coach with Curling Canada. Her introduction to the sport came from father Lyall, winner of the 1964 Brier and World Championship. Her first trip to the Scotties was in 1987 as the alternate for Pat Sanders, but it was her work with Julie Sutton in the early 90s that would raise her coaching development to new levels. Elaine shares how her path in curling was not always clear and reflects on the moments that ultimately led to her becoming one of the first professional coaches in the game.
Friday, November 20, 2020
Episode 70 - Bert Gretzinger
Bert Gretzinger has a few stories to tell. Born in Winnipeg, he spent his middle-school years in Calgary and eventually landed in Vancouver, winning his first purple heart as vice for Bernie Sparkes in 1976. After moving to Kelowna, Bert next won the BC Provincials in 1989 with Rick Folk. They lost to the Ryan Express in the Brier final and when Pat moved to Kelowna, Bert was willing to drop to second to form a new team. With Gerry Richard at lead, their team of skips would compete in three straight Briers, including back-to-back finals against Russ Howard in 1993 and '94. Bert would finally skip a team to a Brier in 1999 and fall one game short of a chance at the Olympics in 2001. Bert tells stories of car spiels, calcuttas and his version of the rock handle controversy at the 1994 Brier. He also shares a lesson in gamesmanship from Bernie Sparkes.
Friday, November 6, 2020
Episode 69 - Resby Coutts
Saturday, August 15, 2020
A Short Diatribe on Even Ends
Before diving in, I want to mention Ken Pomeroy's new curling website DoubleTakeout.com. Ken is an esteemed analyst of US college basketball and in recent years caught the curling bug. You can hear how he came to the sport in his interview on a recent episode of the Rocks Across the Pond podcast. Thank you to Ken for recharging my CurlWithMath batteries and despite podcasting and other projects on the go, I will be trying to post more here than I have in recent years, including an updated Win Probability chart and revisit to a classic article "Is Curling a Battle for the Hammer?".
As I wrote in a past Curling News (also released on this blog) we need more collaboration in analytics to move the sport further ahead and I'm thrilled to see Ken bring his court-side math chops to the ice with painted rings. Now on with the article....