On Sunday, November 18th, a 2014 Olympic gold medalist and his teammates were kicked out of a curling tournament for being “extremely drunk.”
2014 gold medalist Ryan Fry, team captain Jamie Koe and teammates DJ Kidby and Chris Schille were all ejected from the Red Deer Curling Classic because they were swearing and exhibiting “unacceptable behavior that nobody wants to watch or hear or listen to.” Not only that, but they were also banned from any Red Deer Classic events in the future.
In the live stream of the event, one of the commentators noted, “Yesterday, they got here about 11 o’clock. They were sitting over there drinking, about 30, 40 empty bottles of beer and they were doing shots. They went out there completely drunk and played, kicking rocks, throwing brooms, they got disqualified. Other teams were saying, ‘We do not want to even play here anymore if they’re allowed.'” To me, it sounds like the other curlers were a bit peeved that the drunk guys won the first match, so they threw a fit.
Earlier in the day, a Twitter account for Koe’s team posted the picture below of the team with two beers each captioned “#TeamCorona2.0.” You read that right. A group of Canadians drinking Coronas is already suspicious, but using a hashtag that clearly cuts off as soon as they use the period? That’s downright fishy.
It’s Part of the Sport
Canadians in any sport being disqualified for getting drunk is one thing. Curlers banned for drunkenness is another. But when we’re talking about CANADIAN CURLERS getting kicked out of a CANADIAN tournament for life because they were drunk, now that’s asinine. Alcohol and curling go hand in hand. That’s obvious. Just ask four-time world champion Randy Ferbey, who considers himself “the last of a dying breed.” The kind that would “go curl your game then go sit and visit with people and have a bunch of beers and stay up till midnight.”
Apparently up in Canada, these people hate it when birds fly or fish swim too. Why take something so natural, so beautiful, and punish it for doing it’s natural thing. We must remember the words of Marky Mark (from the Funky Bunch), “I am a peacock, you gotta let me fly!” I assume that’s what Ryan Fry and Jamie Koe were thinking too.
Taking the beer out of curling is changing the sport entirely. It’s similar to taking the big hits out of football. I get it, but it’s part of the sport. We all realize there are big, sometimes dangerous, hits in the NFL. In hockey, occasionally players will get bored and fight each other. We can’t just take that away. Or the NBA, where we understand players will walk with the ball from time to time. In MLB, we understand it will be hours and hours of a mind-numbing waste of time, as we watch players stand around, waiting for the occasional hit.
Curling is a gentleman’s game. Let the curlers drink, even if they feel the need to snap a broom from time to time.
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