There has been big news in the curling world this week – but unfortunately it isn’t of the good variety.
The Grand Slam curling events in Canada have been wiped out until April.
The first one was due to take place in September and there were two others in the calendar.
The only positive from our team’s point of view is that the last two in April are still scheduled to take place, the Players Championship and the Champions Cup, and we’ve qualified for both of those already.
I didn’t have my head in the sand. I always feared that events would drop off. But I must admit I had hoped that there would have been another solution for the Grand Slams.
There was talk of playing the three competitions back to back at a bio-secure venue.
Because the coronavirus infection rates vary so much across Canada it felt like that might be realistic.
But, for whatever reason, the organisers have decided it’s not a goer.
The significance for European teams is huge.
We would pretty much always build our trips around a Grand Slam event, sometimes playing two other tour competitions while we’re over there.
That might not be financially viable this season.
The Grand Slams have by far the biggest prize pots. The Canadian Open, for example, has $150,000 to play for, with the winners getting $35,000.
What also now needs to be factored in are the new guidelines for curling that are being introduced in Canada.
There are ones that will affect the actual game that I’ve talked about before – like only one sweeper at a time – but there are also ones that affect the logistics and the cost of travelling.
It’s small things like having to have individual rather than shared rooms and getting individual cars to tournaments that might be a drop in the ocean for golfers and footballers but have a big impact for touring curlers like us on tight budgets.
And we may also have to factor in the possibility of coming back into quarantine when we return to Scotland and missing out on two weeks of training over here.
We’ll keep everything in perspective and stay positive but it’s certainly not going to be a straightforward season, that’s for sure!
What I think will happen is Canadian curlers will compete mainly in Canada, Asian curlers will compete in Asia and European curlers will compete in Europe.
There is enough strength in depth in all three areas to make sure one set of curlers doesn’t fall behind the rest or pull away.
And it might even reverse the trend of European events dropping off the calendar.
* I’m delighted that the permanent appointment of Kristian Lindström as our team coach has been confirmed by British Curling.
It’s not the easiest of times for him to relocate to Scotland but we’re really pleased to be working with him.
We were able to test things out at the end of last season and we worked well together.
He’s young in coaching terms but has got lots of new ideas and I’m sure that will bring out the best in us.
