Having weathered the “Great Curling Controversy of 2015–16,” Brad Gushue can’t help but have a positive outlook. “Last year was very challenging,” Gushue says. “But, ultimately, I think it’s a good thing we went through it.”
To quickly get you caught up: The curling world was a contentious place in 2015 and early 2016. Groundbreaking new broom-head technology morphed the sport from a shooter’s game into a sweeper’s, as pads that acted like sandpaper allowed sweepers to alter the speed and curl of rocks and ensure that practically any misthrown shot could be salvaged. As shooting percentages soared, teams bickered over use of the brooms. And last May in Kemptville, Ont., the National Research Council of Canada was called in to hold the first ever “Sweeping Summit.” After days of intense testing and analysis, a series of new regulations were introduced, including one that outlawed the new technology and ensured all teams at major events would use uniform broom heads.
Maybe the only positive to come out of the controversy was the advent of “directional sweeping.” Gushue’s team was at the forefront of the innovation, stumbling upon the method during an eight-day training camp in South Korea ahead of last season. They found that by using one sweeper to brush at more purposeful angles—instead of two sweeping across the rock’s path—they could control the rock’s curl with incredible results. The highly abrasive broom heads generated scratches in the playing surface, which acted like a track for the rock to follow. Gushue remembers having so much control that his team began playing around with what he called a “knuckler”—a rock his sweepers could curl and straighten out and curl as it travelled down the sheet.
When Gushue’s rink started using directional sweeping early in 2015, fellow curlers laughed. But as they raced out to a hot start, other teams adopted the method. “When you look back at how sweeping has been done over the years, we all look pretty foolish,” Gushue says. “The way we can affect the rock today has always been possible—we just weren’t aware of it. The tools we were using weren’t good enough to demonstrate the difference. Now we’ve seen what can be done, so we’re all sweeping a little bit smarter.”
The new broom regulations have eliminated a lot of directional sweeping’s most dramatic effects, but Gushue still feels the method is useful. Beyond its impact on thrown rocks, the strategy also helps teams manage sweeper energy, as one of the two gets to take certain shots off. At a major curling event, where teams play more than a dozen games in a week, having
a little extra gas in the tank for the later stages is never a bad thing. “If one guy can do the same job that two guys were doing,” Gushue says, “then why wear yourself out?”
With the souped-up broom heads a thing of the past, the first few events on the curling calendar this season have been interesting to watch. Gushue expects shooting percentages to drop by an average of five points across the sport, with the top players experiencing minor decreases in accuracy while the less-renowned teams suffer dramatic drop-offs. When it comes to technique, some teams have continued to try to crack the puzzle of directional sweeping, while others have reverted to traditional sweeping methods. Gushue’s team is currently using a hybrid system, taking a one-sweeper directional approach for hits and a two-sweeper traditional approach for draws. But it remains a work in progress, and Gushue says he’s looking forward to getting an opportunity to try to reinvent the wheel once again. “We need to lock ourselves in a club for a week and try out some new things,” Gushue says. “I think there are a lot of untapped possibilities when it comes to how you’re going to manage your shot and your sweeping.”
Ultimately, the most important aspect to a good shot this curling season will be how the rock is thrown—exactly what the vast majority of curlers wanted. And as he stands at the other side of curling’s seminal controversy, Gushue thinks it was all worth it. “There was a lot of tension. But we learned a lot, and now that we’re through it, I think everybody’s better off,” Gushue says. “It shows that our sport is evolving.”