Originally published March 10, 2017. I’ve deleted the half-baked analytic look at the Brier.
The easy joke here would be that having more crowd noise would be infinitely preferable to hearing “HARRRRRRRDDDD!!!!” all the time. (Seriously — broadcasters should consider putting a decibel limit on their on-ice microphones, or just mute them when they’re not talking strategy. Some of us are listening on headphones to avoid irritating the rest of the house, and we’d rather not go deaf.)
But I had started to wonder if the crowd was getting a little out of hand. The Brier (Canada’s men’s championship) is in Newfoundland/Labrador this year — specifically, the beautiful town of St. John’s — and they’re quite excited to see hometown hero Brad Gushue, the 2006 Olympic champion. Gushue is first in the worldwide Order of Merit rankings. (See spreadsheet below.) The next person from the province is 345th.
During last night’s showdown with defending champion Kevin Koe, the crowd wasn’t just cheering the great shots from Gushue and his team. A roar went up when Koe’s team had a rare miss.
So I wondered if it was just me. Nope. Here’s Glenn Howard, for whom “veteran” is an understatement (four world championships and this ridiculous shot): “I’ve never actually seen a crowd cheering as loudly for misses, and I’ve been to 17 of these. This is the loudest I’ve ever seen in my career, for an opposition missing. I’ve never actually witnessed that before so this is new to me.”
Source: Is the Brier crowd getting out of hand? — CBC Sports — Curling
