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What Happened to CBC Curling?

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TMC

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Apr 19, 2011, 9:00:14 PM4/19/11
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http://canadiansportsfan.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/what-happened-to-cbc-curling/

Anyone else remember the good old days of watching curling on CBC? I’m
talking about back in the ’90s when Don Wittman and Don Duguid called
CBC’s coverage of the Brier, Scotties, Worlds and Olympics. I’ll never
forget the first time I watched curling during the 1998 Winter
Olympics with Wittman and Duguid on the call.

The point of this is to not reflect on what CBC’s curling coverage was
like 12 years ago, instead to take a look at both CBC’s and TSN’s from
this past season. I find that TSN’s coverage is improving every year,
while CBC’s is in decline. One hindrance for CBC may be that they only
have rights to show 13 broadcasts a year, from four events. I think
the bigger problem is their choice of commentators though. Bruce
Rainnie and Mike Harris seem okay. Scott Russell is alright as a host,
but shouldn’t be anywhere near the broadcast booth in any sport,
especially curling. That leads me to the main problems with CBC’s
broadcasts, Joan McCusker and Colleen Jones. McCusker occasionally
offers solid analysis, but most of the time she just repeats the same
things over and over, broadcast after broadcast. Add on to that she
has an annoying laugh and she tends to laugh even if something isn’t
funny. Jones is just like McCusker, except CBC tries to use her as a
reporter. She doesn’t ask any real questions and she seems to be too
close and friendly to every curler for my liking. I just can’t see her
asking any difficult questions if a skip made a bad call that resulted
in losing the game.

I think it is obvious that Curling on CBC needs changes if they plan
on keeping the Grand Slam for any amount of time. Their current deal
runs through the 2013-2014 season. TSN’s deal with the Canadian
Curling Association for the Brier, Scotties, Worlds and other events
also ends that season. Maybe CBC could see if Ray Turnbull would
consider coming out of retirement to work four weekends a year. If
not, then I’m fine with Mike Harris remaining on. If I were CBC I’d
stick with Rainnie and Harris calling the Grand Slams as a two-man
booth. The great thing about curling is the players are often the best
colour commentators. There really is no need for a 3-man booth,
especially one at CBC that tends to talk over the players. For The
Players Championship, where there the women’s final is broadcast on
CBC, a guest analyst should be brought in. Personally I’d just use a
curler whose team had already been eliminated. I think Cheryl Bernard
would make a great analyst if she wanted to go that route.

Aside from changing the commentators, CBC should make some small
tweaks to their broadcasts. Bringing back the classic theme song,
which has been ditched in favour of a new one in recent years, would
be a start. Broadcasting coverage in HD, something TSN has done for
years, would be nice too. As much as I like the idea of having some
curling on CBC, if they can’t improve their broadcast I’d like the
World Curling Tour to look into a deal with TSN when this current
agreement is done. I think that between TSN and TSN2, it would be
reasonable to expect a quarterfinal, semifinal and the championship to
be broadcast. TSN doesn’t have a lot of Saturday afternoon and
Saturday night programming in the winter and curling will pull in up
to 500, 000 viewers for the Grand Slam events.

Speaking of TSN, I think their coverage got better in the past year,
if that is possible. The updated scorebar just looks better, but that
is the least important of the changes. Russ Howard is doing
spectacular on the main broadcast crew with Linda Moore and Vic
Rauter. I think Russ has improved Vic as well, he always seemed a
little to comfortable with Ray Turnbull. Russ has a knowledge for how
the game is played now that the rest of the commentators on CBC and
TSN simply don’t have. He invented the 3 rock rule, he has played the
game in the past 5 years since it has really changed into a very
athletic sport. Because of how the ice and sweeping have changed, the
strategy has changed since even Mike Harris and Joan McCusker have
played too. Russ has the strategy down. Someone mentioned earlier this
year that he is too hard on the Canadian team and he questions calls
too much. Being hard on a team that isn’t playing well (Amber
Holland’s team wasn’t playing well at the time) and usually when he
questions a call, the shot is missed. It is a lot better than “safe”
Joan McCusker questioning any risky call just to see it made.

In future seasons I’d like to see a few things from both CBC and TSN.
The first is, if a player is talking don’t try to explain to the
viewers what they are saying. We can understand them just fine, we
don’t need an analyst’s opinion. The second is, sometimes the play by
play should just shut up. We can all see the rock coming down the ice.
95% of the time the person in the house and the sweepers will tell us
if the line and weight are okay. A guess from an analyst tends to be
wrong. Sometimes less is more, and with players wearing microphones in
curling, that couldn’t be more true. In fact I’d like to see TSN give
a shot to just having Russ Howard and Linda Moore call a game without
a play by play. ESPN has successfully mastered this in tennis and BBC
has in Formula 1, two other sports where a true play-by-play
commentator isn’t really necessary.

Rod's work news

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Apr 20, 2011, 5:52:51 PM4/20/11
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http://canadiansportsfan.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/what-happened-to-cbc-curling/

Anyone else remember the good old days of watching curling on CBC? I’m
talking about back in the ’90s when Don Wittman and Don Duguid called
CBC’s coverage of the Brier, Scotties, Worlds and Olympics.
 
There MUST be some confusion here. You have used the phrase, "the good old days" and the name (albeit, God Bless him) Don Duguid in the same sentence. IMHO, Duguid was the absolute worst curling commentator ever to speak into a CBC microphone.
 
 I’ll never
forget the first time I watched curling during the 1998 Winter
Olympics with Wittman and Duguid on the call.
 
The FIRST time you ever watched curling was in 1998, ... and you now believe that you're qualified to tell the CBC and TSN how to deliver their coverage ???????

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