News Players' Championship

By Mike McEwen

The Players’ Championship is a very special Grand Slam and traditionally the finishing touch to the curling season. Now, Sportsnet has added the new Humpty’s Champions Cup that follows nine days later, but to many of the athletes, myself included, this will still be our most memorable stop on the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling series.

Added to the whole experience is that the event is held in downtown Toronto’s Mattamy Athletic Centre (old Maple Leaf Gardens) which is just a baseball’s throw away from a glorious amount of restaurants, shopping, and accommodations … or maybe it’s that my team is pumped to see the Blue Jays play the Yankees? Plus it’s another chance to convince my wife that a Josh Donaldson-esque hair style would look good on me. Yeah right… I have a better chance of waking up to a free shaved head haircut courtesy of my spouse than realizing this dream!

Okay, baseball aside let’s talk about the unique storylines for the 2016 edition of the Players’ Championship:

– The field is a culmination of a lot of winning and it’s the only way to book your invite. No one, and I mean no one ever, has done more winning on tour than Team Rachel Homan. In fact, if it wasn’t for an unfortunate last stone miss in the opening Grand Slam of the year (Tour Challenge), Team Homan would have captured every single women’s Grand Slam title to date. Just a huge pile of championships when you include their other WCT victories. This unprecedented winning season could (more like will) help her team win the Rogers Grand Slam Cup. Only two round-robin wins and Homan and her team will seal the deal and all the spoils that go with it — 75K that is! A little anticlimactic, but very well deserved.

– On the men’s side the Rogers Grand Slam Cup standings are led by Team Gushue, who has been impressive all season. Newly crowned world champions Team Koe is close behind and followed by a tight pack consisting of Carruthers, McEwen, and Epping. The 2016 Rogers Grand Slam Cup name won’t likely be engraved early as this one could still be up for grabs right up until Sunday night’s final.

– Team Gushue also has an opportunity in Toronto to complete a career Grand Slam. This involves winning all four major Grand Slam titles: Masters, National, Canadian Open, and the Players’ Championship. And I think so does my team (hopefully I didn’t miss anyone else here)! After slipping just inches too far to win the 2015 Players’ Championship I know we are eager for another chance to redeem ourselves.

– The final Humpty’s Champions Cup spots for men’s and ladies are still on the line — you gotta win a championship to get in! There are some very good teams that have yet to qualify and they will need to win the Players’ to do so. A few notables missing include such men’s teams competing this weekend as 2014 Olympic champ Brad Jacobs and one of the top Canadian teams in Charley Thomas. On the women’s side 2015 world champ Alina Paetz needs a victory as does Tracy Fleury’s team who represented Northern Ontario in the 2015 Scotties and who lost a tight final in the National in Oshawa, Ont.

– A worldly team has never triumphed in a men’s Grand Slam. Team Edin came close in a Players’ final falling to the great Kevin Martin (that guy in the booth now). Will we see that dry spell continue this weekend or will Canadian dominance continue? On the ladies side this isn’t quite the case, but the one curiosity for me is will the Homan freight train continue?!?

– There are a lot of CTRS and Olympic qualifying points on the line. Canadian teams are not the only ones who hold Grand Slam events and points so dear. Other countries’ national team programs rely on these point systems as well … the USA and Switzerland immediately come to mind and I’m sure there are more. So, an unequivocal test against the very best our sport has to offer with the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics a ways off, but not too far.

– There will be new updated sweeping rules for this event. In collaboration with the WCPA (World Curling Players Association), in my opinion the GSOC is implementing some of the best rules to date. What are they? Without getting too many fine details a simple description is we will be using a Left / Right brush rule. Those two brushes will stay on their corresponding sides of the sheet for the entirety of the game, so you won’t see the curlers switching and passing brushes back and forth, etc. Why do this? While we want our fittest, strongest, and technically sound athlete’s to have the most brushing impact, curbing that to an “appropriate” amount is important. Kudos to Sportsnet for continuing to push the envelope with new ideas. I’m sure the governing associations will be taking note in advance of their upcoming Sweeping Summit!

– Competing in April can create some interesting hiccups in team lineups — some of us have exhausted time off from other duties or nagging injuries just can’t wait anymore. Team Muirhead will be bringing in Cathy Overton-Clapham for injured third Anna Sloan, Canadian junior champ Matt Dunstone will be temporarily filling out the lineup for Team Thomas, Kristy McDonald sparing for Amy Nixon on the Team Carey squad, and Pat Simmons will be playing lead for world bronze medalist USA’s Team Shuster. I’m personally looking forward to seeing Simmons sweep again… or maybe he worked out a deal where Shuster is swinging the sticks instead? We’ll know soon enough!