The generosity of three lifetime members of the St. Albert Curling Club will assist the next generations of the roaring game.
Ray Rouault, Neil McKay and Don Johnston donated three SmartBrooms to the St. Albert Junior Elite Development (STAJED) program to assist with the curlers' sweeping techniques.
The SmartBrooms, with a price tag of $1,000 each, connect to a smartphone or tablet through Bluetooth and track the sweeper's movements and power.
“It’s something for the future. It’s for people coming up through the ranks; hopefully it will help them in their endeavours,” said Rouault, 87.
The curling club’s 13th lifetime member in 2016 dates back to the corn broom era and now uses a stick to deliver a rock.
“I’m getting too old for all this technology, but the new generation – it means something for them,” Rouault said.
Johnston, 63, also marvels over the modern-day advancements like the SmartBroom with sensors measuring sweeping performance and the data is available through an app.
“The technology advancements that have been happening over the last while, especially in curling, you’ve really seen it in the growth of the sport,” said the lifetime member honouree in 2011.
Johnston is also from the era when corn brooms were phased out with the arrival of the brush-style brooms.
“Initially, when the brushes first came in we thought they were for sissies because they didn't require as much effort as a corn broom and of course once it evolved and we got into the brushes we realized this is a workout also and there is a technique to this that is very effective.”
McKay, 70, is a big believer in the power of knowledge though the use of SmartBrooms.
“To have access to more technology and more information an individual has the better, and it doesn't matter what the sport or the subject is. They’re able to accomplish whatever it is they’re trying to accomplish,” said the 1998 lifetime member.
McKay has also experienced the evolution of the curling's sweeping apparatus.
“I’ve been curling for almost 60 years and I was clearly a corn broom guy back in the day and then the first brushes came out and there was the hog hair and the horse hair and then some sort of foam kind of brush and now we’ve got at the competitive level a standard for the material, we’ve got flexible heads, and now we’ve even got brooms that will tell you how good your sweeping is. Back in the day I don't know if our mindset would have even thought of that sort of thing,” McKay said.
The SmartBrooms will also be made available to St. Albert Curling Club members in addition to the STAJED youths
“They’re for training purposes. They’re trying to achieve your highest sweep potential index. It takes an average of your push per pound, your pull per pound and how many repetitions,” said Nicole Bellamy, the curling club manager and a driving force behind the third-year STAJED program.
The SmartBrooms are the latest STAJED instructional tools along with lasers for video purposes and a timing beam called Rock Hawk.
“Being a coach is really just being a mirror to these athletes so whenever you can say this is what you look like, those sorts of things, it really puts it in perspective. They’re obtainable goals so they can look at this and say I think I can do better than that and it’s hard to do that without having that mirror in front of them. You can take pictures of them and say we can work on your technique, but do we really know if it’s effective. It’s such a hard thing to gauge with when you have like a 42-pound curling rock,” Bellamy said.
The SmartBrooms were unveiled at the STAJED session Thursday and guest instructor Marc Kennedy assisted head coach Taina Smiley with data analysis and sweeping tips.
Some of the curlers had experienced SmartBrooms before while others received input on the various sweep variables – push-force, pull-force and frequency – for one Sweeping Performance Index result.
“It’s super cool because I never really know how good of a sweeper I am because it could feel way better than it is or feel way worse than it is,” said Tori Hartwell, 16. “I’m able to know frequency, pressure and overall how good I am.”
As for the broom itself, “It’s kind of the same sweeping like the one I normally use, “ Hartwell said.
Kennedy also demonstrated how sweeping styles have changed over time and the theory behind the current standard on the competitive circuit
“It was super interesting. He brought up a bunch of points that I never really realized like how pressure is way better than frequency,” said Hartwell.
The Grade 11 Archbishop Jordan student is skipping a St. Albert rink at the U18 provincials in two weeks and her teammates are STAJED members’ Payton Sonnenberg at third and Jillian Fash at second. The lead is Jaelyn Macrae of Sylvan Lake.
Kennedy, 38, will be competing in his ninth Brier and the first with Team Brad Jacobs of Northern Ontario starting Feb. 29 at Kingston, Ont.
The St. Albert Curling Club wall of fame inductee in 2011 is the winner of three Briers, two world championships and 15 Grand Slam events and in 2019 was named the greatest Canadian male second in history in a TSN poll of broadcasters, reporters and top curlers.
As great as Kennedy is – the STAJED youths were thrilled to have the two-time Olympian and 2010 gold medallist showing them the art of sweeping a rock – the real stars of the SmartBroom presentation were the trio of lifetime members who made lasting contributions to the St. Albert curling scene.
Rouault was 24 when he was voted president of the St. Albert Curling Club in 1956 and was one of the original shareholders when the club moved from its first site across from the old Bruin Inn to its current location in 1959.
McKay was president when the new back end of the club was built in 1997 while helping steer the building committee.
Johnston volunteered in 2009 to chair the club’s most ambitious project, the $3 million rebuild of the front end of the Tache Street facility.
“We’ve been members of this club for so long so it's really rewarding to be able to give back. The club is special to us. It means a lot to us. It's been part of our lives for a long time,” Johnston said.
Each SmartBroom has the name of the lifetime member on its stick and Rules Rouault, Arm Strong McKay and Builder Johnston will help pair the app to the broom.
