Competitive advantage
When does using technological innovation for a competitive edge cross the line to going too far?
That debate is at the heart of the current controversy regarding broom head design, firmness of foam pads and the impact these have on how the game is played heading in the Canadian Grand Slam tournaments in the sport of curling.
For those who have been living under a rock, the sport of curling involves teams alternating with players delivering (throwing) a 42-pound polished chunk of granite down a sheet of ice toward a target. The sweepers, using special brushes, seek to help get the rock to its intended location by melting a thin layer of ice in front of the rock.
Success in the sport has traditionally relied on both good throwers and good sweepers. Significant amount of research and innovation has gone into directional sweeping, pad surface materials and head construction. Combined these have given the sweepers much greater ability to direct where the rock goes.
By comparison, imagine if there was some new technology introduced such as putting powerful magnets inside footballs and metal plates in the gloves of receivers making it next to impossible to miss a pass. Such a move would increase the number of touchdowns but undermine the skill needed at quarterback and of the receiver and diminish the intent of the game.
The argument first made during the Broomgate controversies of 2015 and the resulting 2016 World Curling Sweeping Summit, and resurfacing now is that the technology used undermines the sport by giving the sweepers too much ability to direct the rock.
The 2016 World Curling Sweeping Summit “set objectives to ensure fair play by minimizing the directional influence of brooms on stones, prioritizing delivery skills, and standardizing sweeping equipment.”
At particular issue now, is the firmness of foam pads in the broom heads which a broad coalition of elite curlers has come out against saying that the technology goes against the goals of the 2016 Curling Sweeping Summit by giving too much power to influence games to the sweepers.
Thirty different four-player teams—15 men’s, 15 women’s—have all signed their names to a virtual document, along with three corporate entities: Goldline Curling, Hardline Curling and Gravity Management Inc. calling for the sport’s world governing body to enact updated standards for the use of the broom heads and prevent what has been described as an equipment arms race between the top broom designers.
All of this will have very little impact on the vast majority of recreational curlers. Just like bringing an aluminum bat to a wood bat softball tournament doesn’t do any good if you will strike out every time you are at bat.
Where it does matter is at the fundamental level where sport should be a contest between athletes on a balanced playing field where it is the skill of the athlete and not a technological innovation that separates the winners from the losers.
I recognize that this level of idealism has very little place in modern big-money sports. In the pro sports where winning and losing can be the difference of millions of dollars, sportsmanship takes a back seat to using any advantage or rules loophole to win. Unfortunately, as curling has increased in popularity globally, it has not been immune to those negative trends.
It is personally refreshing to see that top athletes and equipment manufactures are the ones calling for a change in the rules to maintain the integrity of the sport.
It is clear that there must be limits such as setting the firmness of foam pads, or the area of the broom head. Just as there are rules that govern other parts of this and all other sports.
You can’t stop innovation, nor should you, but at the same time sports governing bodies must maintain a balancing act between allowing sports to evolve and maintaining the things that are fundamentally part of any sport.
Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News. Contact Brian at BrianWilson@centralwinews.com.
