The Brier is now not your father’s Brier.
What was a provincial and territorial males’s curling championship embodying Canadian Confederation for many of its nearly 100 years is now a hybrid together with a number of groups from one province and extensively differing methods for groups to get in it.
Former Canadian and world curling champion Nolan Thiessen, Curling Canada’s new chief government officer, says each the Brier and the Canadian ladies’s curling championship, the Scotties Match of Hearts, should stroll a aggressive and advertising and marketing tightrope.
“The way in which I at all times describe it with the Scotties and the Brier, is that’s has to serve just a few individuals and masters,” Thiessen stated. “It may possibly’t be 100 per cent advertising and marketing and leisure. It may possibly’t be 100 per cent excessive efficiency.
“We’ve got to seek out that center floor. If it ideas too far on both facet, then we are able to have points.”
Wild-card entries that elevated from one to a few in 2021 are referred to by their province or territory beginning in 2024.
Aside from the standard purple coronary heart crests that provincial and territorial champions earn, there’s little in Regina to visually differentiate this yr’s Alberta provincial champion Aaron Sluchinski from Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher, whose group was one in all two gaining early entry primarily based on their rating final yr.
Together with Kevin Koe, there are three groups with “AB” on their backs in Regina. Thiessen says the athletes needed to get rid of the wild-card designation.
Bottcher likes it as a result of curling followers in his province can really feel they’re cheering for 3 groups as a substitute of 1.
“Within the final handful of years, it was at all times laborious to get behind cheering for group wild card, as a result of who’s group wild card on the Brier?” Bottcher stated.
Curling Canada introduced extra modifications in April 2023 to how these groups enter the lads’s and ladies’s nationwide championships.
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The highest three males’s groups within the nationwide rankings on the conclusion of this season acquire early entry into the 2025 Brier in Kelowna, B.C., together with the 2024 champion.
Rankings are primarily based on factors earned from tour occasions over the course of a season. A excessive rating requires an funding of time, journey and cash, in addition to successful.
Curling Canada’s residency guidelines require three of 4 gamers on a group to stay in, or be born in, the province or territory they’re representing to compete in provincial or territorial playdowns.
The defending champion and three “pre-qualified” groups will not be topic to these residency guidelines.
Brad Gushue, who’s making an attempt to win a 3rd straight Brier and sixth of his profession, has a lead from Alberta and a second from Ontario.
The Brier’s defending champion and three different groups may ice 4 gamers from totally different components of the nation at future Briers, however they’ll’t in the event that they miss the pre-qualifying mark and should go the provincial or territorial playdown route.
“The way in which I have a look at it proper now could be you’ve got a number of methods to get into the nationwide championship,” Thiessen stated. “You will get in by way of factors, you may get in by way of playdowns, or you may get in by successful it the yr earlier than.
“We’re all Canadians nonetheless taking part in for a Canadian championship aren’t we?”
The Olympic trials each 4 years, which doesn’t have a provincial/territorial requirement, determines Canada’s representatives at Winter Video games.
The annual Brier and Hearts will not be solely Curling Canada’s annual advertising and marketing showpieces. They decide the nation’s reps for world championships, the place it’s grow to be more durable in recent times for Canada to win gold medals, and the place Canadians should additionally end excessive sufficient within the rankings to qualify the nation for Olympic Video games.
Rising worldwide aggressive stakes meant the Brier and Hearts needed to let extra groups in, Thiessen stated. The Brier is now an 18-team event.
“We’ve not taking away the provinces’ and territories’ means to get in. We’re not pulling out residency. We’re not going to say ‘full freedom,’ or we’re not saying ‘we’re simply going to have the trials format.’ That’s not taking place,” Thiessen stated.
“The provincial and territorial championships matter and they should matter, however we additionally want to verify . . . we’ve one of the best groups taking part in. If you look out right here proper now, the highest seven groups are right here. That’s actually necessary.”
If Gushue desires to maintain his present group configuration intact and compete within the Brier, he both has to win it once more or chase factors laborious through the season.
Solely a handful of different groups on the Brier are keen or in a position to make investments that sort of money and time all winter, and people groups are typically from Alberta and Manitoba. So is the Brier discipline honest?
“The straightforward reply isn’t any. It’s fairly apparent at this stage,” stated New Brunswick’s James Grattan, who made his Brier debut in 1997.
Grattan would favor a event like the previous Canada Cup resolve the nation’s worldwide representatives and maintain the Brier in its provincial and territorial roots.
“I’m extra of a traditionalist than anything and I appreciated that there have been all these provincial colors and all people earned their approach there,” he stated. “I at all times thought there have been Canada Cup routes or (Grand) Slam routes for all these huge guys, and this championship was particular for that purpose.”
Thiessen factors out Curling Canada’s athletes’ council, which incorporates Bottcher, and the provincial and territorial associations accredited the modifications.
“I feel the present format, though it’s a little bit of a shemozzle of a few various things collectively, I feel it accomplishes the objective,” Bottcher stated. “It retains the Brier related.”
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