// TALES FROM SHEET NINE


Carving – It’s not just for Thanksgiving anymore


By David Garber, U.S. Curling News Columnist, dj.garber@tds.net


with the flat leather center like a beaver tail, came into vogue. Tese latter two made especially sat- isfying “thump” noises when wielded properly. Sweeping was used as it had been for centuries, to clean the ice, and, in the 20th century at least, to increase distance and reduce curl. Eventu- ally quasi-scientific testing proved that sweeping could bring rocks as much as 15 feet further, de- pending on ice conditions. With the advent of inverted straw came “chaff,”


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crushed bits of corn straw, like fluff, originally an unplanned by-product of hard sweeping by skilled sweepers. Te average club curler did not sweep hard enough to produce much chaff, so in the average club league game, chaff was not a fac- tor and the club players did not necessarily learn how to deal with it. In many clubs, horse- or hog hair brushes were used, not corn; in those clubs, chaff was little known. Competitive teams figured out how to use chaff


to their advantage. If leſt on the ice, rocks would collect it under the running surface, slow down, and curl more (unlike picking up a brush hair, which would immediately change the course of the rock in unpredictable, oſten major ways.) If the chaff was swept away in front of the shooter, the ice would react as it did prior to the chaff be- ing deposited. I recall my first experience with chaff, at a


cashspiel on Minnesota’s Iron Range. Our op- ponent’s stones seemed to have plenty of weight and needed to curl a lot, then, as they entered the house, “up” went the sweepers, and the rock would increase its move behind a guard or to nes- tle in front of a backer, while also conveniently slowing to make a very nice shot. One story, per- haps apocryphal, perhaps true, told of two pow- erful Ranger sweepers who would challenge curl- ers to get a rock into the house. Tey claimed they would either sweep it through or leave it short.


hen I was a lad, we used straw brooms, then the inverted straw “Blackjacks” and “Little Beavers,”


Now that’s sweeping power and skill. Te sweepers’ use of chaff, in my opinion,


was perfectly ethical, as the chaff was a by- product of powerful sweeping. By the end of our second (lost) game we caught on. At my club, when the ice was mopped aſter a game, not too much junk appeared. On the Range, aſter a competitive game, there was enough chaff to fill a large kapok-style life jacket. Te antidote to chaff was mainly to constantly “clean” moving rocks, whether with brooms or brushes, which worked pretty well if serious cleaning pressure was applied. Some teams asked that the sheet be mopped periodically. In the event, the effort required of great broom


sweepers meant serious pre-season training was needed. As a kid, I’d heard that Bud Somerville’s rink practiced sweeping on their local high school gym floor in the late summer/early fall to get their hands in shape for the season. At early season bonspiels (“early season” was late Octo- ber through early December in those days) many players had their hands covered with athletic tape due to blisters. By the late 1980s, brooms fell out of favor, in


part because brushes seemed to work as well for much less effort, and in part because it got ex- pensive for top teams, who wore out dozens of brooms each season. One substitute for straw, which eliminated chaff but created noise prob- lems, was the foam-filled cloth-covered broom. “Rink Rats” created stupendous annoying noise, even when wielded by average sweepers – a rock swept using two Rats meant no one in a four- sheet club could hear a darn thing. Brushes were much neater than brooms, but


they did shed, especially when they got old and the glue started failing. But they stood up pretty well, and while they cost four or five times what a broom cost, they were still more economical, even if sweepers were less aesthetically pleasing to watch. Young curlers may never experience the beauty and obvious athleticism of two syn- chronized broom sweepers, ala Hibbing’s Kleff- man and Scott and others. By the late 1990s, cloth heads became de ri-


gueur for many curlers: no hairs, no muss. Tey did need to be brushed off, and they got moist over time, but the heads were interchangeable. Tis season I witnessed the advent of a new


sweeping method, dubbed “carving.” I must ad- mit I am no expert on the subject and have not observed the impact in person. I have asked sev- eral active competitive curlers for their descrip- tion of carving, and closely followed a thread on Curling Zone in which the technicalities were ex- tensively discussed. Te new technique, which I understand com-


bines special abrasive fabric brush heads with an oblique sweeping motion evoking the older “corner sweeping” method, evidently has a pro- nounced impact on rocks, making them curl more, and slowing them, especially with brand new unused fabric. At Men’s Worlds, one sweeper would have a well-used brush, the other a brush with new fabric to “carve” if needed, meaning the rock needed to curl more. Te skips called the name of which player was to sweep. Very confus- ing at times for this old fellah to follow, seeing a heavy and/or wide rock swept. Without expressing judgment in this column


here (I’ve run out of space!), I will say that “carv- ing” is now a very contentious issue among curl- ers. Te technique, if allowed, appears to have the potential to significantly change the sport of curling from primarily a sport of shooting skill to a sport dominated by sweeping equipment and techniques. In recognition of the potential disruption, the


World Curling Federation has asked curlers to answer a brief questionnaire (www.worldcurling. org) as part of its current formal process to evalu- ate the new sweeping method and decide what, if anything, to do about it. (Early this season, the WCF banned specified, especially abrasive, brush head materials.) Q


USA Curling (( 31


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