How can something be "too good for the sport" is beyond me. I get that it makes comparing the past to the present, but it literally based on the description in the story made it seem like the changes were improving the "sport" on the competition.
> “It got a little out of hand this season where it became more of a line-calling game and a sweeping game as opposed to a throwing game,” explained Miskew. “We don’t want it to be about the fabric on your broom head. We want it to be about throwing it [the rock] well.”
So it sounds like they make the throwing part of the game "obsolete" since the sweepers have so much control that it doesn't matter how bad the throw was. So it's unbalancing the game in unexpected ways.
Don't be silly. The sport is about improving players skill, not technology. The brushes, like aluminum bats in the MLB basically provide so much of an advantage that the skill factor is reduced significantly.
I mean we could have robots play the game perfectly and that would be a lot less fun... or at the least a fundamentally different sport.
"my photojournalist buddy Steven Michael nailed a target at 1,008 yards—about 0.91 kilometers—on his first try, in spite of never having fired a rifle before"
The first person using such a gun in shooting competitions would probably be called a genius in the sport, but soon every competitor would use it, and nobody would miss anymore.
The curling situation is similar in the sense that, if this were allowed, curling players no longer need to have good control of direction, speed, and spin of the stones they throw.
Sports regulation deals a lot with what's the 'heart' of the sport. ie what's the skill that's supposed to be on display, in this case curling is mainly about the throwers skills and the new materials made that much less important. Another goal of regulations is also making a leveler playing field where competitions don't come down to who could afford the most advanced tools.
i guess that if curling becomes too easy, the team who has the last stone would always win, unless they are amateurs. Kinda like if it was possible to check mate in the first move in chess, so that whoever started first would win.
side note, i think sport is too professional. And that it might actually be more fun for amateurs if they could curl better.
It totally changes the game and it's even worse on an amateur level. Professionals are making 80-90% of their shots, and the sweeping techniques were pushing that percentage higher. However, amateurs are only making 50% of their shots, and this technique/fabric can make a shot go from a miss to a perfect hit. Although the WCF did rule that for local bonspiels (tournaments), any fabric can be used so this discussion for the amateur level is quite moot.
There are always lines to be drawn - this is "in" or this is "out". Are performance enhancing drugs in or out of Baseball? What about catamarans in the America's Cup or Oscar Pistorius' running blades. Or more interestingly the running blades on a non-paralympic athlete's legs?
Researching technology and techniques to determine if they are good for the sport like the Curling Federation is doing is little different from the MLBA deciding on whether wood, metal, or corked and testing the effects on the game.
I'm not sure the manufacturing changes "improved" the sport so much as "changed" it which could be good, bad, or indifferent depending on the team, skill, strengths, and weaknesses. But testing and understanding the changes is a worthwhile goal.
For an article about how revolutionary these brooms are it would have been helpful for a description of how they can be used to vastly improve a bad throw. Or do some weird turns. Maybe a video even.
19 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 58.3 ms ] threadSo it sounds like they make the throwing part of the game "obsolete" since the sweepers have so much control that it doesn't matter how bad the throw was. So it's unbalancing the game in unexpected ways.
I mean we could have robots play the game perfectly and that would be a lot less fun... or at the least a fundamentally different sport.
Please edit personal swipes out of comments here. Your comment would be just fine without that.
Here is a similar, but possibly easier to understand, example that would revolutionize/kill the sport of shooting: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/17000-linux-powered-r....
A later article (http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/gun-linux-on-the-rang...) wrote:
"my photojournalist buddy Steven Michael nailed a target at 1,008 yards—about 0.91 kilometers—on his first try, in spite of never having fired a rifle before"
The first person using such a gun in shooting competitions would probably be called a genius in the sport, but soon every competitor would use it, and nobody would miss anymore.
The curling situation is similar in the sense that, if this were allowed, curling players no longer need to have good control of direction, speed, and spin of the stones they throw.
side note, i think sport is too professional. And that it might actually be more fun for amateurs if they could curl better.
Researching technology and techniques to determine if they are good for the sport like the Curling Federation is doing is little different from the MLBA deciding on whether wood, metal, or corked and testing the effects on the game.
I'm not sure the manufacturing changes "improved" the sport so much as "changed" it which could be good, bad, or indifferent depending on the team, skill, strengths, and weaknesses. But testing and understanding the changes is a worthwhile goal.
Ha ha ... only in Canada.
It's actually a great sport, you can play until you're 100.
I'm Canadian and it was hard to not wonder if I was reading the Onion
(He didn't apologise.)
(I'm sorry.)