Men With Brooms – Starring Paul Gross and Leslie Nielson ( 2002 )

If you miss Paul Gross because of his magical performance as a Canadian Mounty in Due South (which I do), here’s your chance to see him once again. He stars in and also directs this rare movie about curling. One of his costars is Leslie Nielson. No, there aren’t any broom to the groin shots or gratuitous slapstick. Nielson plays Gross’s father who also coaches this group of relatively ragtag misfits into becoming a rink in this small town setting. They go on to play for the “Golden Broom” after previously chasing this title ten years earlier and quitting because of their ethics or lack thereof.

The movie is somewhat predictable and follows the premise of the Karate Kid where an untrained, unfit group takes on the flashy, well funded antagonist. And when you feel that all hope is lost, Nielson exclaims, “you want an easy ride? Go play a bonspiel for the gutless!”

All in all, the movie is well done. Some cheesy special effects, but that’s to be expected when it isn’t directed by Spielberg. There are some very funny lines and the movie moves along well enough that your attention span doesn’t get “bumped out of the house”. The characters are likable, the acting is likable and the end result is a little predictable. But who cares, someone made a movie about curling. That’s just fantastic!!

I give the movie 6 out of 8 stones in the house.

Mud Duck

If you have or find any other movies about curling, let me know.

The Pete Fenson rink is taking on Deb McCormick in Whistler, BC in a match sponsored by Korbel Champagn. A classic battle of the sexes! Korbel logos are prominently embedded in the ice, with little champagn bottles in the house.

As I write this post, it is down to skip rocks in the eigth end with Fenson up by two, McCormick with the hammer. Thank you NBC for showing curling on TV– keep it coming!

Update:  Celebrity captain Picabo Street threw the final rock for the McCormick rink, but couldn’t score.  Final score:  Fenson wins, 7 to 3.

Alternate title: Broken Brooms, Shattered Lives

Last year midway through the curling season, I upgraded from a wood handled broom to a fiberglass Reactor 2 by Olson Curling Supplies. It is a great broom– it is very light and quick, and the narrow head makes it easy to brush right next to the rock. The best part of this broom though is the handle: Instead of being round, it has flat edges, more like a hockey stick than a traditional broom handle. This makes the broom much easier to grip tightly and put muscle into the sweep.

My Reactor2 in happier times

I was very happy with this broom. I think it made me a much more effective sweeper, and it was reasonably priced (purchased on Amazon.com for ~$65). Prior to sunday night, I would have given the fiberglass Reactor 2 a solid B+.

What happened sunday night? In about the fifth end, while delivering a stone, the business end of my broom broke off. Yes, broke off. I was watching my shot and didn’t notice it, until a player on the opposing team picked the broom head off the ice and handed it to me. I was shocked, obviously. Why would the broom snap during a delivery? There must be a lot more force on it while sweeping. I pondered this as I grabbed a club broom from the barrel to continue the game (we lost).

Broken brooms, shattered lives. The broken end of the screw is visible at the end of the handle. It was screwed in to the deep nut connected to the swivel. The whole connection was encased in hard plastic.

I took a closer look at the busted broom after the game. There is a threaded rod which secures the handle into the the swiveling head, and a hard plastic cowling around the connection. It looks like the threaded rod snapped one or two threads deep, leaving only the plastic to hold it together. I probably broke the rod while sweeping, and then side loaded the fracture during my delivery, resulting in broom decapitation.

I don’t think I’m particularly tough on brooms, so I’m attributing this catastrophic failure to either a design flaw or a defect in the steel threaded rod. Either way it knocks my grading of the Olson Fiberglass Reactor2 down to a B-. This was a great broom that never let me down, until it did, and then it did big time.

I stopped by the Duluth Curling Club to watch some of the action at the 2006 LaBatt Cash Spiel. Wow, that is curling on a whole different level than league play. The highlight of the evening: While we were entering, John Shuster was leaving and he held the door for us.

You can check the updated scores here. Click the “(more…)” link below for lots more photos of the saturday afternoon draws of the 2006 LaBatt Cash Spiel.

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This weekend the Duluth Curling Club will host the 2006 LaBatt Cash Spiel. It starts friday morning and continues through sunday, and will include rinks skipped by Olymic medalists Pete Fenson and John Shuster, and Olympian Cassie Johnson. This event will be a great chance to see some fine curlers compete for a $19,000 purse. I’ll post pictures and updates soon.

Vote for Curling Monkey!

Curling Monkey will blow yellow rocks out of the house during league play– choose red!