Off the Ice at Esbjerg

While the women battle it out on the ice in Esbjerg, happenings off the ice could change the face of international championships in the near future.

Under the two tenets of the WCF wanting to have control over who plays in their championships and having the best teams on the ice at the major finals, a group was set up following the meetings in Champery last December to iron out the details of a qualifying competition for the Men’s and Women’s World Championships from 2014 onwards.

As a result of that group’s discussions and further talk in the last couple of days it looks as though the following system will ultimately get the go ahead – but not until further details are added to the proposal and so not until Moscow in December.

For the World Championships from 2014 onwards the participants will be decided as follows: the host nation, the top 7 countries from previous World Championships and then the top two teams from at least two qualifying competitions to be run by the WCF.

The top seven countries may be from the previous season or from a weighted average of past performance (say over the previous three seasons) – this is one of the details to be finalised.
All other member nations would participate (if they wanted to) in a qualifying competition – let’s assume there will be two called Red and Blue. If the host venue for one of these competitions is in the entries then they would be placed in the respective group and then all other nations would be placed according to World ranking. Otherwise World ranking would be the sole determinant. Entries would need to be in by June 1st and the qualifying competitions would be held in November, except for an Olympic season when they would be held in January because the Olympic Qualifying Event is programmed for November (see below for details of that!). The top two teams from each event would qualify for the WMCC and WWCC.

So this means the end of regional qualification via the European or Pacific Championships and also ends the almost automatic qualification of Canada and the USA who would have to finish in the top 7 or 8 to qualify for the next year. In the most extreme circumstances it could mean a World Championships made up entirely of European countries or alternatively with only three or four European Countries participating. It also calls into doubt the role and status of the Pacific and European Championships.

With Olympic qualification dependent upon gathering points in the World Championships will national associations be forced by their national Olympic Associations to enter the World Qualifying competitions but then not offered any help to compete in the European Championships which will occur just a few weeks later? Will a country’s best players be able to get time off or to afford to attend both competitions?

From an England point of view for example why should we send a team to the World Qualifying as we do not get any Olympic points even if we get to Worlds and even if we did it is certain that our champion teams could not afford to play in both – so do we send a poorer quality team to the Europeans? But then entry to the WCF Qualifier will presumably be free while an entry to the European Championships costs over £500?

And then there is the Olympic Qualifying Event (OQE) – this was confirmed at the meetings in Champery – it will be held in the November prior to the Olympics and will be for all nations who have played in the three previous World Championships but not gathered enough qualifying points to automatically play in the Olympics. So for season 2013-14 (and other Olympic seasons) the programme begins to look like this: OQE in November, Europeans/Pacifics in December, World Qualifiers in January, Olympics in February and Worlds in March/April – quite a programme and is it sustainable in what is still an amateur sport?

In non Olympic years the World Qualifying Competition will take place in November. One side effect of all this could be that the World Mixed Doubles and World Seniors will not be changed to November as was previously proposed – soundings will be taken of the teams in St Paul at this year’s competitions.

Two rule changes will also be voted on at Friday’s General Assembly. Firstly the issue of time-outs has arisen again. In Cortina it was decided that they would be replaced by coach interactions when the coach could have a minute on the ice with his/her players but the clock would not stop. This led to some dangerous situations with coaches running or climbing barriers to get to their team as quickly as possible. In Champery it was decided to implement a travelling time for the coaches which would be specific to each venue and would be when the clock would be stopped. When the coach reached their team the clock would start and they would have a minute on the ice with their team.

It is necessary for this revised rule to be defined in the Rule Book and so this will be done on Friday if voted for but in addition the option of doing away with time-outs all together will also be put on the table.

The WCF is still keen to do away with tiebreakers as the need to allow time in the programme is not an efficient use of time if it is not needed and situations have arisen recently where insufficient time was allowed in the programme for tiebreakers, leading to the situation at the EJCC in Prague where the Czech Republic played four games in one day.

There is no option on the table to do away with tie breakers but there is a motion to keep tie breakers for the moment in the WMCC, WWCC, WJCC, WWhCC and WMDCC but to try out a number of alternative systems in the EJCC, PJCC, WSCC and WWhQCC – these alternatives include variations on the Draw Shot Challenge, including more than one stone per game, a post round robin shoot out, as trialled at the EMCC last September, or a reversion to a previous system of a post round robin four-stone all team member draw shot challenge.

The final major proposal put forward by the WCF Board was to disconnect the WCF General Assembly from the World Championships to allow attention to be focussed on the curling and allow WCF Board Members more time to network and entertain sponsors. The idea is that there will be a World Curling Congress in the Autumn which will not just incorporate the meetings but could be expanded to include clinics etc. While the WCF wanted to initiate this in 2011, they were persuaded that arrangements were already too far advanced for the semi-annual assembly at Moscow in December and so the likely outcome is for the General Assembly due for Basel in April to be abandoned and the first World Curling Congress to take place in Autumn 2012.
Further information on these proposals will follow the General Assembly in Friday.

Watch this space.