Curlinggate

Curling is an Olympic sport, and one that, being on a sheet of ice, is quite popular in Canada. Canada has won, in the three events (men, women, and mixed) 11 Olympic medals since since the sport was reintroduced to the games in 1998 (Wikipedia). (Curling had a 74 year hiatus from the winter games, before being reintroduced 1998.) They have not won an Olympic gold medal since 2014, however, when they earned gold in both the men and women events. That means they must be quite hungry for a gold medal. Canada won men's gold in three consecutive Olympics: 2006, 2010 and 2014. Canada is to curling what the Soviet Union was to hockey from 1964 to just before the Soviets loss to the US in the Olympics in 1980. Sweden has eight medals in this time frame, and won the gold in the 2022 games in the Men's division. Canada is big into curling, and so it is interesting that our northern neighbor has instigated Curlinggate by double touching the granite stone. 

I often think of curlers as being rather polite to each other, even in competition. I am not sure how I got that image, perhaps since it is an event where they are close to each other on the same sheet, but not bashing the opponents head in. Or, the curler I know is such a gentleman that I could not see him reacting the way the Canadian third did to the Swedish allegation. That is why I took some interest in a dustup that occurred between Sweden and Canada in the men's match at the Olympics less than a week ago.  A Swede said that the Canadian third touched the stone again after it was released, a double touch is against the rules. This less than polite Canadian unleashed a series of F-bombs against the Swede. He then tried to paint the Swedes as the guilty party. Does not say much about Canadian nice. That lack of niceness was reiterated in a BBC report.

The BBC reports that what the Canadian men's third and the woman skip did makes it a "sad day" for curling. The BBC had this to say: While the curlers have shown their anger over the situation during matches, fans of the sport and Canadians have questioned whether the team acted in the spirit of curling. To quote the BBC: "In a country well known for its 'niceness', the cheating row has stung for some. The BBC asked tourists and locals in Montreal what they made of it. 'It's a sad day for Canadian sport,' said Tim Gray, from Alberta. 'Integrity in the sport is important, even if you have to call it on yourself.'" Other news outlets, LA Times as one, say Curlinggate has destroyed the trust for a sport which has typically operated on a culture of trust and self-regulation.

Canadian Men's Curler, Marc Kennedy, who was
said by Swedes to Double touch
Image: Tiziana Fabi /AFP via Getty Images

This got me wondering what that gentleman curler acquaintance of mine thought. He was born and raised in Canada, but has lived in the US for much of his adult life. He has been an Olympic coach of the US Women's Curling team (2010) and during his career a two-time US men's champion and two-time world bronze medalist. When asked about the situation he made two cogent points. First, that if the issue of the double touch was raised it likely had occurred. Such that it made me think no one would bring up the double touch if it was not true. Second, he intimated that such double touch seems to be somewhat common, as he said other Canadian teams have done this in the past. This makes me wonder if they are coached (wink, wink) that way?  Delivery of the rock is crucial in curling. You try to get it in the house or knock other rocks out of the house. The sheet is swept ahead of the rock after it is delivered to form a layer of water to move the rock faster, or to alter its direction. Actually, according to the BBC the physics behind how and why the stone moves is really not well understood. 

Curling goes way back. According to World Curling "The first written evidence appeared in Latin, when in 1540, John McQuhin, a notary in Paisley, Scotland, recorded in his protocol book a challenge between John Sclater, a monk in Paisley Abbey and Gavin Hamilton, a representative of the Abbot." 

Canadian Woman team skip, was hit with a double touch
Image: Fatima Shbair/AP Photo/picture alliance

I curled one day, many years ago, and never could get my knees to cooperate, so I declined any further involvement. It seems like a somewhat silly sport until you try it and it is more difficult than one would have thought. I am not sure how well I delivered the rock, that piece of granite with a handle attached, much less judging how much to sweep. 

With the complaint. the Olympics have now decided, since the infamous brush up (pun intended) at the Canadian-Sweden match, to have two judges at the delivery end. Now, showing that perhaps my source is correct regarding Canada, the Canadian women's skip had a delivery stone pulled due to the same issue the men allegedly did, touching the stone twice. Following that on Sunday, the British team's third had a stone pulled for the same reason. My source's comments (see paragraph three) came before it was made public that the Canadian women had a delivery disqualified. Hence, this could be the way our northern neighbors are taught how to cheat at this sport, with perhaps difficulty in noticing what is occurring on the delivery. The fact that two incidents have occurred since the additional referee was added makes me think it is engrained in these curlers, and has been practiced that way. Otherwise why would you risk disqualification of a stone by the double touch? It may be a difficult habit to break. The extra touch is used to add or reduce speed. Keen eyes, it seems are required to pick this out, and hopefully they are better at it than NFL referee's trying to determine what is or is not a catch, or interference on a pass play. I wonder if curling will go to the replay booth to help determine the proper call. Curlinggate. Curling's version of the NFL's Deflategate. In 2014-2015, the sport was rocked by new bristles on brushes which were able to alter the trajectory of the stone in a greater degree, this became known as Broomgate, or Brushgate. And, for all the gates, whether brooms, deflate, or curling, we have Watergate to thank.

The Canadian who started the controversy, denies the double touched, even when a video from a Swedish network seemed to implicate him as touching the stone twice. He may not know he even does it, that is how ingrained it has become. The Canadians now claim the Swedes were illegally filming the match. The recalcitrant Canadian believes the Swedes were filming to catch a curler in the act of the double touch. He calls it a premeditated plan to catch the illegal touches, and he claims they have filmed other teams too. If so, the Swedes were waiting for the right moment to make the call and release the video. Does curling now have an illegal video being taken to prove illegal activity? 

Science may have trouble explaining how a curling stone moves, but it has figured out the ability to get lift in ski jumping. Male ski jumpers apparently thought to inject their male organ with hyaluronic acid to get more girth and hence to get more lift on the jump. More lift equals more distance. The injections led to the additional regulations right before the Olympics. In the meantime, it seems other Olympic sports are taking heed. An Austrian ski jumper was disqualified because his ski boot was 4mm too long. A US woman ski jumper was disqualified because her skis were too long. It seems that ski jumpers were to enthralled with the hyaluronic acid issue to make sure their equipment met the specs. Curlinggate only leads to removal of the stone double touched, not a disqualification. 

And, if once was not enough, and perhaps showing how this is ingrained in the Canadians, it came out Tuesday that on Monday Marc Kennedy of Canada was called out by a Swedish journalist who took a photo of him double touching against Czechia. Responding to the reporter when confronted, Kennedy said there was not a single intentional double touch. The key word being intentional. Whether by design, or simply by habit, it is still not legal. Except the Canadians apparently do not see it that way. The Swedish photographer also apparently has photos of the Canadian men's skip double touching. I am not sure where the officials were, perhaps looking the other way. For some reason, I don't think this will go away, and it is a stain on a once gentile sport. Canadian press would not allow the journalist to speak to the skip. It seems as if they will have to go to video replay.

Swedish Journalist photo of
reputed illegal touch in Canada 
against Czechia

What athletes are willing to do to try to find that edge to get higher, stronger and faster seems to lead to controversy and then more regulations. People will be people in always looking for that slight edge over their competition. Ski jumpers are willing to inject themselves, and then we have the Canadian and British curlers doing the double touches. If Canada were to win a medal it could well be clouded by their double touching, and make the curling crowd wonder if the double touches influenced early match outcomes. One mate involved in curling in Canada, subscribes to a school of journalism popularized by the current US President (all news is good news) and said the added press may be good for the sport. 

Curlinggate gets more juicy by the day and Canada is getting more press on this issue than it may have desired, on the other hand they kept it going by their whining about the issue. It is also why I decided I have to get this published, otherwise it would take a life of its own, as Canada simply can't keep their fingers off the stone. As Curlinggate dominates the Olympic press, curlers need to ask themselves what impact this will have on the sport.

Rodent Forecasters

It was a typical early February day last week Monday morning. Cloud cover obscured the sun as it came over the horizon. At this time, the city of Sun Prairie pulled out of hibernation a groundhog. The purpose of the ground hog was for it to make its annual forecast for when winter will end. Jimmy did not see his shadow, which legend portends a shorter winter season. Several years ago Jimmy, who has been at this since 1969 (albeit different animals), experienced 15 minutes of fame when the rodent bit the Mayor's ear. This fame was sandwiched between  the fame the city received when Christopher Hovel last played football at Sun Prairie High and the notorious July 2018 gas pipe explosion that took out part of the downtown. Jimmy may even have had more press that year, due to the ear bite, than Punxsutawney Phil, the oldest rodent winter weather predictor in the nation, which was started in 1887. Every year it seems Phil gets the press. Phil had a different prediction than Jimmy in the binary selection process.

Not sure who this guy is, or where he got the 30% for Phil
Oh, what AI can do!

At the same time, there seems to be a contest of who is the most accurate predictor of an early spring, as compared to six more weeks of Winter. The web site for Jimmy does not give his percent success rate, but reads: "Jimmy has an extremely high accuracy rate on his annual predictions, making him an outstanding leader in meteorological circles." So, I wondered, what metrics are used to determine if spring arrived early. Many negativists say it really does not matter, since by the calendar spring arrives in about six weeks anyway. This year, calendar spring will arrive on March 20. Some years it is March 21. This year it is six weeks and four days past Groundhog Day. Perhaps sometime I will delve into why it is Feb 2, and not a couple days later putting it right at the halfway point through the calendar winter. Meteorologically, winter is said to be Dec, Jan and Feb. Hence, March, April and May make spring.

Phil's recent scorecard, which got me wondering how this was calculated

Regardless of calendar or meteorological springs, as people we generally look to certain signs of spring. Flowers, snow has melted, temperatures warming. It is hard to define, but we seem to know it when it comes early. Same thing for winter, which sometimes starts, as this past year, right after Thanksgiving. In 2019 we had several inches of snow at the end of October (with other early storms)  followed by very cold weather for many weeks; it then warmed before Christmas and the snow had mostly melted. The ground froze, crops remained in the field and the sewer district had months of sludge that had not yet been worked into the ground. The district had to find former farm storage tanks to store it until spring. Mother nature sure knows how to throw curve balls. As a shoulder months, March and April can be very unpredictable. Although seldom is weather consistent with you would expect. A few years ago camping at Cunard Lake I talked a man who was there camping, and he had come up for the opening of fishing season on May 1, only to find that the lakes were all frozen and covered with several inches of snow. Here it was less than two months later and I was swimming in that lake. The latest known frost date in Boulder Junction is June 30, which probably explains why their claim to fame is muskies and not groundhogs. I would think ice and snow on lakes counts as a late spring. Does frost on the last day of June count as a late spring? The day my youngest son was born (Apr 29) we went from unseasonable warm, the wife who was very pregnant that year would say hot, to having seven inches of snow on his date of birth. Luckily, the warm pavement and ground allowed much to melt quickly. Without metrics, how does on acknowledge if the rodent is correct?

Jimmy about to pounce on Mayor's ear
Apparently, it needs a muzzle

My wife thought I was being too analytic in attempting to figure out the metrics used for the rodent handlers to say if they were correct or not. Her point was this is all in jest.  But, when they start giving out stats, it is not just jest. I get it, they are trying to prove who has the best prognosticating rodent. I look at my desire for a sophisticated metric to be very Germanic, as who else but the Germans would desire detailed calculus of how the groundhogs perform? Germans demand precision, just like in that former car commercial. 

NOAA top ten, see link in paragraph below for the whole ranking

As items of rodent prognostication showed up on my Facebook page I realized two main points. First, there are many more rodent prognosticators present than I thought, and, two, that the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) has rated the 18 groundhogs and one turtle. To meet their criteria, they had to be doing this at least 20 years as of 2 Feb 2024. What they found was rather striking, with success varying from 85% to 30%, with Phil and one other woodchuck at the low end for groundhogs. The outlier was the poor turtle who had a lowly success rate of 20%. Jimmy came in fifth at 65%. The problem is that they do not say what metric they used to calculate. Was it based on how much a location was above or below average, or did it use some level of standard deviation from the norm? After all, there is variability in weather. As Josh and Jase (the Brits who visited Michigan this past January) have said, in the Midwest all you have to do is turnaround and the weather may have changed. It must have been a down week at NOAA for them to do find the weather and do the calculations on groundhog forecast proficiency. Perhaps Donald Trump saw this and it led to his agency cuts. Yet, with such a low rate of success, should Phil be the determining factor for early verse non-early spring?  Most news outlets seem to think so. Phil predicted a long winter, while Jimmy has predicted an early spring. Now, weather can vary by region in the US, so who is to say Phil is correct for Wisconsin, much less California?

The 18 groundhogs are in 8 different states, with Pennsylvania leading the way with four, followed by NY with three. Unfortunately, a Friendly Illinois Brethren rodent tied with Jimmy for fifth place. Communities desire some claim to fame, and sad to say Sun Prairie had the chance at other aspects, but chose a groundhog. A bit quirky, and I guess it beats Fitchburg's Recycling Capital of Wisconsin, which no longer applies since most of Dane County all recycle the same stuff (although McFarland, through a local club here recycles stretchable plastic, with bins at the library). Actually, Pennsylvania and New York make sense for Groundhog Day did not start with Bill Murray, but with German, and more specifically Dutch Germans in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the old country a hedgehog was used. It is an outgrowth of Candlemas where, according to lore, if an animal like a badger or hedgehog, saw its shadow there would be another winter. Lacking hedgehogs, and probably finding badgers a bit unruly, the Pennsylvania Dutch-Germans used the groundhog, with the first observance by Phil in 1887. For those not aware, Wisconsin, the Badger State, did not get the moniker from actual badgers, but from lead miners in Southwest Wisconsin who were referred to as Badgers because they lived in caves in the 1820's to 1830's as temporary shelter, and of course dug for lead. Actually, this whole thing of groundhog prognosticators involving German and Dutch-Germans is rather hard to believe for such  heritages are not known for frivolity. Germans, I am sure would be pleased to have measuring metrics as it goes against the whole mirthfulness of the occasion. Being measurable it brings precision and math to an event that is otherwise very questionable, particularly in Punxsutawney. Looking up the stereotype of Germans as precision oriented, I found even the business school in Munich recognizes such. 

This has me thinking there is a market for a prognosticator on the flip side, as we move from autumn to winter. at around Halloween time, for perhaps a chipmunk or a opossum to let us know when winter really will begin. The opossum may well play dead and hence fail to give a forecast when most needed. Is a sign of spring when chipmunks come out from their hibernation behind my rock walls?

I had thoughts of developing a metric, but thought it could get out of control, so now I am willing to let NOAA, although not sure of their metric, to be the judge over what groundhog is the best forecaster. My wife can now rest easier knowing that a higher authority than me has already developed a metric to rate the accuracy of the rodent forecasters. 

Dream

In April 2009 a frumpy middle aged woman appeared on the television show, Britain's Got Talent. After some odd antics that left the judges shaking their heads in disgust, she said she was going to sing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables. The audience found it incredulous that such a frumpy woman could sing this rather difficult song. Then she started singing, and, within a few seconds the attitude in the auditorium changed. Susan Boyle was wanting to fulfill the dream her mother had for her, to be a professional singer. Last week the wife had Alexa playing some music and after a few songs, I heard Susan Boyle singing "I Dreamed a Dream." The lyrics are rather appropriate to our world today where dreams are being upended for some by aggressive tactics. 

Follow along as Susan Boyle sings "I Dreamed a Dream" at this link (starting at the 1:44 mark). 

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving

And I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame

And still I dream he'll come to me
That we will live our life together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream
I dreamed

Aspirations are part of our human condition. Those that are on the lower ends of the socio-economic ladder in particular face difficulties. During his last public address on Easter Sunday, 2025, the day before he died, Pope Francis added to his many comments on migrants (for example, see 10 Feb 2025 letter to US Bishops): "...how much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants! On this day, I would like all of us to hope anew and to revive our trust in others, including those who are different than ourselves, or who come from distant lands, bringing unfamiliar customs, ways of life and ideas! For all of us are children of God!"

This nation was built on the premise of basic rights as first identified in the Declaration of Independence (250 years ago): "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

One program that is now essential in the nation is social security, as one example. With the nation now  continuing to experience historic low birth rates and with births near equaling deaths. Growth in population has to come from migrants. And, the nation needs growth, as social security and other programs depended on a standard population pyramid, which is now a rectangle.

Susan Boyle, that then frumpy middle-aged Brit, inverted the audience's opinion of her. She would get some fame and would release varied music titles. That is not the case for many of those affected by governmental actions.  Has the nation cut out the ability of people, whether legal or not, to realize their dreams?