In Which We Are Amazed
The Brier is in Ottawa this year. If you don’t know much about curling, well, here’s the official website. If you don’t have time to go there, the Brier is the Canadian Men’s curling championships and it is a BIG DEAL.
Like take-all-your-vacation-time-and-spend-$500-to-get-a-pass-for-the-entire-event huge. Like travel-wherever-in-Canada-the-Brier-is-hosted-this-year-because-it’s-a-ritual massive. Like a great big celebration of the sport.
It’s a good deal too – a great deal – for most of the Brier there are three draws each day: morning, afternoon, and evening. In each draw there are four games – so you can watch 12 games of curling each day for about a week and then you get into the playoffs.
There’s a whole culture around the Brier. There’s the Brier patch, where you can see live entertainment, mix and mingle, and have a few beverages. When the stands get rocking during a draw, you say “Oh, I guess a few people were visiting the patch.”
There are costumes, and chants, and noisemakers, and more. It’s really fun.
This year, there was also a Junior Stars program. We urged my son to enter. “You have nothing to lose,” “Give it a try,” “It would be a great experience.”
All he had to do in his entry was explain what curling means to him. That was actually pretty easy – he loves it – so he entered and he won!
I had told him if he won I’d buy him a curling broom so he could have it signed by the team he was paired with so a couple of weeks ago, off we went to buy a curling broom with a white handle … very important.
And yesterday we went.
Well, it was mind-blowing from the moment we were greeted. The Stars – my son and another curler from an Ottawa club were whisked away – and the family members who had come with them were told “Sorry, we have no tickets for you to watch the game … because there are no tickets for where you’re going to sit,” – which was rinkside. Right behind the boards. So close we could touch the players if we wanted to. Very cool.
We got glimpses of our kids every now and then. With the team during practice:
My son with Team Quebec – the Menard Rink – what a great group of guys!
Marching onto the ice as honourary team members and standing for the National anthem.
Holding stopwatches to help the coach time the players’ slides.
Going into the TSN broadcast booth.
On the Jumbotron:
I don’t normally put my kids’ pictures on social media but for this event I figure his cover is already blown!
Each time they walked past us their smiles were bigger.
By the time we finally had them returned to us – in our amazing seats – they had jackets, jerseys, baseball caps and … I couldn’t believe it … actual Team Quebec brooms. Which means my younger son just inherited a never-used white-handled curling broom. Nice …
This whole experience was just nice, nice, nice. The swag was great, and generous, but more important was the way the kids were welcomed, included, respected, and treated like very VIPs.
Both came back bubbling with excitement about Team Quebec, but also about the behind-the-scenes broadcasting – the cameras, the technology, how it all works – very eye-opening.
I want to THANK Curling Canada, Team Quebec, and the amazing Director of Game Day Services, Andrea Weedmark (volunteering her time all during the Brier) for a truly outstanding experience.
Oh, and best of all, Quebec won their game!
