Chelsea Carey’s Scotties championship was a made-in-Manitoba moment

Random thoughts and observations from a couch potato after a week watching the 2016 Scotties Tournament of Hearts from Grande Prairie, Alta….

A commercial that played on TSN during the Scotties was a promo for the province of Manitoba, finishing with the tag line “Canada’s Heart…Beats.”

They might want to change that slogan to: “Manitoba…where lady curlers rock!”

Chelsea Carey

I mean, there have been some lean sporting times in the Keystone Province. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers haven’t won the Grey Cup this century and the Jets didn’t even exist for the first 10 years of the century (and, much like their football kin, all they do is lose).

The one undeniable and enduring source of sporting pride has been Toba’s curlers, most notably the women, starting with Jennifer Jones and her Olympic champion gal pals from the St. Vital Curling Club. But now we’ve also got Chelsea Carey and Kerri Einarson in the mix. The 2014 (Carey), ’15 (Jones) and ’16 (Einarson) queens of Toba curling claimed three of the four playoff perches at the Canadian women’s championship tournament. Never happened before. Not likely to happen again.

Oh, sure, I realize Carey now calls Wild Rose Country home, but that does nothing to disturb the reality that the freshly minted Canadian champion was weaned on the pebbled freezes of Winnipeg.

I like to think of Chelsea as a loaner to Alberta, not a keeper. I want her back one day.

• You’ll have to excuse me for root, root, rooting for Chelsea Carey to win the Scotties, which she and her Calgary-based outfit did Sunday night. It’s personal. Her dad, Dan, and her Uncle Bill were childhood friends of mine. The former Brier champions lived across the back lane on Chelsea Avenue and I was on Melbourne in East Kildonan. Uncle Bill and I got into a scrape or two, as I recall, but nothing serious.

• I don’t know if it’s my imagination of not, but it seems to me that the girls at the Scotties have more fun than the guys at the Brier. There’s a lot more laughter.

• No disrespect to Jenn Hanna and her Ottawa outfit, who seem like lovely, young ladies and clearly earned their place in this field, but a Scotties without the Rachel Homan team is like a golf tournament without Tiger Woods when he was the world’s premier golfer.

• After watching an interview with the thoughtful Hanna, I realized how much I miss talking to curlers. Of all the athletes I covered during my 30 years in mainstream jock journalism, none were more obliging, accommodating and genuine than curlers.

• Can’t get enough of Amy Nixon, the Alberta third. She’s a delightful bundle of high-octane energy.

Bryan Mudryk and Cathy Gauthier

• It’s 9:30 a.m., Bryan Mudryk. Do you know what broadcast booth you’re supposed to be in? The TSN announcer, who works so well in concert with Cathy Gauthier (another great Manitoba curler), went to the wrong booth for the opening draw on Thursday morning. Wake up, sleepy head. And maybe hit the pillow a wee bit earlier at night.

• I really enjoy the self-deprecating humor Mudryk and Gauthier inject into their gab gig.

• Name a sport, any sport, and you won’t find a better broadcasting crew than TSN’s Vic Rauter, Cheryl Bernard and Russ Howard. There’s a folksy charm to their banter, especially between Vic and Russ, and Howard has perfected the art of being brutally honest without being brutal.

• I never get tired of watching Jennifer Jones’s final shot to win the 2005 Scotties. It still gives me goose bumps.

• So nice to see Vic Peters in the house at Revolution Place. Vic, a former Brier champion, is Manitoba second Liz Fyfe’s pop and he tends to stand or wander on his own when his girl is playing, something Gauthier noted when the TSN cameras caught up with him one morning. “There he is with all his friends,” she joked as Vic stood surrounded by unoccupied seats. “I love Vic.” Everybody loves Vic Peters, truly one of the nicest people on this planet.

• My favorite line from the tournament was delivered by Saskatchewan skip Jolene Campbell, who was greeted with nothing but silence when talking to her third, Ashley Howard, at a critical juncture in one game. “I was waiting for you to say something,” Campbell said to Howard. “It’s like talking to my husband.” That’s the beauty of live mics on the curlers. It’s so real.

• 

  Karen Sagle and Brit O’Neill

  Love the ‘do on Ontario third Brit O’Neill. That’s some kind of funky hair.

• Unless I missed it, it went without mention that O’Neill is one of two openly gay women to participate in the 2016 Scotties. She’s partners with Ontario lead Karen Sagle in life and at the curling rink. If there was a husband-wife combo on a team in the national mixed championship I’m certain it would be worth noting, so why wouldn’t TSN advise viewers that O’Neill and Sagle are a couple?

• Hey, they freed the nipple! The morning after a minor tempest arose about curling moms having to go off-site to breast feed their wee ones, Scotties organizers arranged for a special breastfeeding area for the curlers at Revolution Place. Nice touch, but there should have been a spot for the moms from the get-go. Talk about boobs. Hopefully, that’s already in the plans for the world women’s championship next month in Swift Current. Must keep those future curling champs well nourished!

• Speaking of milking it, it’s about Bryan Mudryk and nicknames. If you want to hang a nickname on a lady curler, Bryan, it’s probably not a good idea to include the word “Slasher.” Mudryk took to calling P.E.I. skip Suzanne Birt the “Island Assassin” early in the tournament, and he wondered if the handle would stick. Nope. Not after he mistakenly called her the “Island Slasher.”

• I felt so sorry for Saskatchewan skip Jolene Campbell when she missed her final shot, a seemingly routine hit-and-stick, against Alberta on Thursday night. It was so jaw-dropping in its sudden-deathness. I wept for her. Literally.

• Is anyone a fan of the relegation system at the Scotties? I’m not. Under no circumstances should provinces like B.C. and New Brunswick be required to participate in a pre-tournament mini-tournament to gain entry.

• If Chelsea Carey and her Alberta team hadn’t won Sunday night’s final against Krista McCarville and her gal pals from Thunder Bay, I would be demanding a Parliamentary inquiry. That isn’t meant as a slight to Northern Ontario, but the girls from Wild Rose Country were the top outfit in the field, from start to finish.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for 45 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour in 2015.

About raw sewage and Paul Maurice…the Freep recruiting Shakey Johnson…a herd of Buffalo Girls at the Scotties…and idiocy in print

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

I see where the city of Winnipeg allowed five million litres of raw sewage to pour into the Red River earlier this month. That’s nothing compared to what Paul Maurice keeps pouring over the boards.

Winnipeg Jets head coach Maurice has lost the plot. Totally. Or he’s gone into tank-for-Auston mode.

Winnipeg Jets head coach Paul Maurice

I mean, really. The Jets are down two goals vs. the New Jersey Devils, Maurice instructs his goaltender to vacate the net in favor of a sixth attacker in a final, frantic push to get a puck past Cory Schneider at the far end of the freeze, and one of his half-dozen wannabe heroes is Chris flipping Thorburn?

What am I missing here?

The last time Thorburn scored, the Prime Minister of Canada was a guy named Trudeau. Pierre, not Justin. Okay, so that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Thorburn actually has five snipes this winter. Trouble is, that’s his average over eight National Hockey League crusades. His career high is nine goals. He lights the lamp about as often as Adam Sandler makes a good movie. Thus, expecting Thorburn to come up with a big goal is like expecting Caitlyn Jenner to win a war of wits with Ricky Gervais.

So what is it that Maurice sees that the rest of us don’t?

Understand something here. I have no problem with Chris Thorburn being Chris Thorburn. The guy’s a gamer. Does whatever is asked of him.

My issue is with Maurice not recognizing that Chris Thorburn is Chris Thorburn.

So, after spending a few days to digest the ouster of old friend George (Shakey) Johnson as sports columnist at the Calgary Herald, here’s what I’m thinking: Why isn’t Winnipeg Free Press sports poobah Steve Lyons on the phone, making a pitch to bring Shakey home? The Freep hasn’t replaced Gary (La La) Lawless, who defected to TSN not so long ago. Since La La took his leave, columnist duties have been shared by the very capable Ed Tait and Paul Wiecek in something of a good cop, bad cop tandem. They’ve been cranking out boffo stuff. But Shakey Johnson is only the best sports writer in Canada (newspaper division). He got his start in River City, at the Winnipeg Tribune in the 1970s. It would be nice if he could finish it off in Pegtown.

Alberta champ Chelsea Carey.

Can you say Buffalo Girls, kids? There will be a heavy Manitoba flavor to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts next month in Grand Prairie, Alta. Kerri Einarson and friends, of course, will have the Buffalo on their backs when the Canadian women’s curling championship slides from the hacks Feb. 20, but Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones and gal pals (Team Canada) will join the freshly minted Manitoba queens in the annual rock fest. There’s more. Chelsea Carey of the famed Carey curling clan and a former Manitoba champion is also headed for Grande Prairie as the rep from Wild Rose Country. Chelsea knocked off defending Alberta champion Val Sweeting on Sunday. We’re talking three of the morning-line favorites, all from the Keystone province.

How do you write a story about the provincial women’s curling championship without telling readers that you’re writing about the provincial women’s curling championship? That’s a good question to ask Jim Bender of the Winnipeg Sun, because he managed to report on Sunday’s Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts final between Kerri Einarson and Kristy McDonald in Beausejour without once mentioning the sport of curling. Tsk, tsk Big Jim.

I have long harbored great admiration for a number of sports scribes in our home and native land. I think of wordsmiths like Jack Matheson, John Robertson, Jim Taylor, Jim Coleman, Milt Dunnell, Dick Beddoes and current-day jock journalists Cam Cole and Bruce Arthur. Giants, each of them. But, in terms of pure writing talent, there are precious few about whom I have said, “I wish I could write as well as him/her.” Atop that list would be the legendary Trent Frayne, whose way with words was unequalled. There has not been a better sports scribe in the True North. Ever. After Trent, my personal fab four includes Allen Abel, Stephen Brunt and Shakey Johnson.

Nothing to admire in this quip from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun: “The idiocy of social media: Fans arguing online who was the better Leaf, (Dave) Keon or Wendel Clark.” Apparently, no one is allowed an opinion unless it jives with Little Stevie Blunder’s. If he says Keon is the greatest of the Toronto Maple Leafs, cased closed. As if, Stevie. Talk about idiocy.

This from my very own self just 15 days ago: “Prediction: By the end of this month, the Jets will be in a playoff position.” D’oh! What a mook.

Winnipeg, the last two-paper town in the West…how Shakey Johnson got his name…promotion for Kirk Penton…and a long overdue induction for Dave Komosky

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

Once we get past the handwringing, the gnashing of the teeth and the anger/bitterness of journos across the land in the aftermath this week’s Postmedia print purge, what are readers of newspapers left with? This: Winnipeg is the sole two-paper town west of the Republic of Tranna.

Oh, sure, Postmedia continues to print both a broadsheet and a tabloid in Vancouver (Sun and Province), Edmonton (Sun and Journal) and Calgary (Sun and Herald), but this is a classic case of a one being dressed up as a two. If the deep-thinkers in one newsroom determine what is to occupy the space between the display ads of both dailies in those three bergs, it is one newspaper, no matter how it is packaged.

Think of this as beer. If you pour half a bottle of Molson Canadian into a mug and the other half into a tall, thin glass, you’re still drinking the same beer. Tastes the same, just looks different.

So it shall be in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary. Rather than two competing journalists chasing the same story and, hopefully, delivering different slants, you now shall have one reporter with no urgency to get the scoop and no fear of being beaten by the opposition. There is no opposition. No alternative voice.

Which makes Pegtown a unique market in the western flank of the nation.

The puppeteers at Postmedia pull the strings for the Winnipeg Sun, while FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership bows to its own master in publishing the Winnipeg Free Press. Unlike papers in the Postmedia collective, the two Pegtown sheets are not Siamese twins, joined at the head. They are in competition, which serves the greater need, even though the end result each day might not always satiate the appetite of readers.

What I am left to wonder is how much Winnipeg will remain in the Sun.

Although not included in this week’s carnage, which involved the merging of newsrooms at eight dailies (the Ottawa Sun and Citizen being the others) and the kicking to the curb of 90 journalists, the after shocks were felt in River City.

Ted Wyman remains sports editor at the Sun. Sort of. He keeps the job title, but some invisible head sitting behind some invisible desk in some remote outpost of the land now will decide what Winnipeg sports fans want to read. How this serves Pegtown provides serious pause for ponder. I mean, shouldn’t a sports editor be able to reach out and feel the pulse of the people? It’s easy enough to recognize that the Winnipeg Jets and Winnipeg Blue Bombers are the big dogs in town and, thus, generate the most talk. But what of lesser players such as the Manitoba Moose, the Winnipeg Goldeyes, the University of Manitoba Bisons, junior hockey, local tennis, golf, curling, figure skating, etc.?

My concern is that they shall be lost in the shuffle.

Take curling as an e.g. It is the third biggest beat at the two River City dailies, behind only the Jets and Bombers. But will there be a Winnipeg Sun presence at next month’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Grande Prairie, Alta.? Not likely. Thus, no local angle, even though there shall be two Toba teams in the event. The Brier, meanwhile, is in Ottawa. Will we be reading Manitoba-centric dispatches from Paul Friesen, Ken Wiebe or the aforementioned Wyman, or generic puff from a Bytown scribe?

I fear the worst, and all this because Postmedia bit off more than it could chew when it purchased Sun Media’s English-language properties last spring.

As mentioned, Wyman is not out of work. He becomes part of the Sun’s bare-bones stable of scribes, replacing Kirk Penton, an elite reporter who has been anointed the Postmedia chain’s national writer for all things Canadian Football League. Coverage of the Bombers shouldn’t suffer in terms of quantity, but quality will take a hit because Penton is the best in the business.

After scribbling a piece about George (Shakey) Johnson the other day, it occurred to me that most folks don’t know the story behind the deposed Calgary Herald sports columnist’s nickname. We don’t call him Shakey because he’s a nervous Nellie with constant jitters. It’s due to his golf game. Back in the 1970s, you see, a few of us from the Winnipeg Tribune sports department would gather for a round of golf on occasion. The cast would rotate, but it generally involved Caveman Dutton, Greaser Drinnan, Swampdog Rauw, Davey Boy Komosky, Shakey and myself. Shakey played a neat-and-tidy game of golf. He struck the ball straight and true, although not far, and we actually witnessed a hole-in-one from him one day at Tuxedo. But he could not sink a putt inside three feet to save his life. He had the yips on the green. After one astonishing display of unparalleled hopelessness with the blade, we retreated to the pub, whereby Caveman Dutton and I commenced to calling him Shakey. The name stuck.

Big night for my longtime friend and colleague Dave Komosky, who joins the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Media Roll of Honour at their 60^th annual awards dinner at the Delta Hotel. As I scribbled a few weeks ago, it’s a long overdue honor. I only wish I could be there to hear his acceptance speech. I have a feeling Davey Boy is going to put some people on the BBQ.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for 45 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour in 2015.