Talk about bad timing.
Wednesday’s announcement of Jim Daley’s retirement came at the same time as the big showdown between cross-town rivals Kevin Martin and Randy Ferbey at the Roar of the Rings Canadian Curling Trials.
“I was going to go for the ‘Ferbey’ – is that how you pronounce it? – and Martin (game), but I’m here with you guys,” Eskimos head coach Richie Hall told reporters gathered at the Eskimos Team Store as the match was getting underway. “Because I was thinking about going down there, but there’s some work I have to do.”
Luckily, the game was being broadcasted on TSN.
“I’m going to see it,” the coach promised before breaking out his best: “Hurry, hurry!”
Don’t let first impressions fool you, the football coach is well-versed in the game and, being the athlete he is – he played nine seasons in the CFL, after all – it sounds like he found some success early on at curling, too.
Or was it beginner’s luck?
“I threw a rock two years ago for the first time and I got it in house. It was in Calgary, it was for a – bonspiel?” Hall said, pausing again for confirmation on his word choice. “My whole thing was when I was pushing the rock is to make sure I get it past the hog line. If you can’t get it past the hog line, just come off the ice.”
Hall even knew about the pebbled ice used on curling sheets.
“I can’t tell you I know a lot about it, but they explained it to me,” Hall said. “But I tell you this, I have a lot of respect for curlers because, to me, it was a much more physically demanding sport than I ever thought it was.
“Of course, I wasn’t the skip, I was the second. It was a lot of sweeping.”
