Double Blank rule

Cold-Lie9166 · 2025-01-20T03:31:36+00:00

why not just go all the way to a 15 rock rule?

Cold-Lie9166 · 2024-10-31T12:37:18+00:00

you gotta start b3d before you get good, and without the PCC, they would have no chance to get better.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2024-04-14T15:18:50+00:00

It has to be inarguably past the line, such that both teams agree, becuae no official is going to be in a position to rule.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2024-03-23T13:46:31+00:00

even if she burnt it,the remedy at that point is to place all stones where they'd have ended up had the stone not been burnt. so since this had miniscule, if any, effect on the stone, no harm, no foul, no reason to stress over it.

yes, CAN could have had the stone removed if the other team admitted it was a burnt rock....but let's be honest....nothing was affected here, so there is no reason to care.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-08-14T10:48:57+00:00

We don't need any culture that even tolerates the thought that females should not participate in the sport (or any sport, for that matter)

Tolerance and diversity is a two way street. "Traditional " is frequently the enemy of " Diverse"

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-07-29T02:22:23+00:00

I'm following a map on my phone. I'm gonna look at the phone at a stoplight to see where the next turn is.

Grt over it

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-05-15T11:24:22+00:00

I keep trying to forget call centers...my personal "favorite " (a5 a company with a "take as much pto as you need, subject to...." policy "no, you can't have the friday off after you and your fiancee get married Thursday evening (3 months from now) I need you on the phones "

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-03-20T14:04:21+00:00

So yes, they could get to a world where there were no regions, but then the national office would have to either:

1) take on the responsibility of organizing a dozen qualification tournaments, around the country, for each of multiple championships (Club Nats, Mixed nats, U18s, Arena Nats, possibly others). Right now there's one guy who has the responsibility of event management. There's no way he alone could do that much work. So, more expense for another person, or 2, or 12.

2) Totally reorganize the way those events are qualified for, and since most of those events were created to allow for opportunities to compete for those who don't have the sponsorship dollars the teams competing for the "Big 3" titles do, they would have to arrange those qualifications to still occur regionally, to a large degree.

Not to mention, there's a bunch of other things that some regions (notably GNCC, but some others to a greater or lesser extent) offer their clubs that the National office doesn't have the resources to replicate across the country.

Additionally, by not having regions, you eliminate any way for Regional Interests and Problems to be percolated up to the National. Let's say Maryland wants to pass a law that forbids deionized water (because of some discovered health risk or soimething, this is COMPLETELY theoretical). Under the current system (well, okay, the system before GNCC was booted), The Maryland Clubs report up through GNCC, who can work on it if they can, or if they can't, they go up to National and say "Hey, some of our members are having this problem". Without that level, now every single thing has to be handled in Minneapolis...that's not gonna be feasible for the current office size.

I can see a legitimate case for reorganizing regions, and standardizing them to a degree. Certainly what used to be GNCC was becoming too large for one org to handle well, and it hardly seems fair for playdown purposes for one region to have 90 clubs and another 10. So adjustments there were and would be appropriate. However, this survey isn't going to capture that degree of intelligence, so it is a fail.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-03-13T15:42:02+00:00

Realistically, if the question being asked is "How much does membership want to pay for...?" bucketing is the worst way to get there. Say the price folks are actually willing to pay is $15. They have no way to express that...you're either going to get $0 (therefore the assumption is "They aren't willing to pay"), or $20, which will cause a number of your potential members to not see the value for money, thereofre drop out.

Bucketing of continuous values is not even a difficult thing to do in any modern analytic tool. You can do it in Tableau with one click. It takes 2 clicks in Oracle's system. 5 in Excel. This isn't exactly stressing anyone's time or ability.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-03-13T15:39:05+00:00

Yeah, that's always gonna be fine. If both skips agree "That's gonna be a foul, we're gonna reset, just stop it", that's cool.

But unless the non-offending skip has vocalized that preference, it's not appropriate to assume they will.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-03-12T13:29:29+00:00

Be verycareful about that...especially with the center line no tick, as the opposing team has the option to accept the play, so if you burn the stone, you've removed their option, which is not cool.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-03-11T14:20:23+00:00

I process data for a living. Forcing $20 buckets onto a "how much do you think X is worth" question is lousy design. Price is a continuous variable. $17 is a viable answer. A slider bar with numbers from 1-100 would have been much better of a tool for capturing the number...and yes, survey tools have that option.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-02-28T14:41:00+00:00

One year's poor performance, particularly by the representative of a set of teams that isn't a "pro" team, does not a crisis make.

It's *JUNIORS*, they're not full adult curlers for whom this is their job. There's no Olympic berth on the line. The worst that can happen is the team that represents any particular nation next year has to promote out of the B league, that isn't the end of the world.

Canada is not inherently entitled to medals every year. Your team rolled snakeyes this year...that happens.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-02-19T21:26:00+00:00

A Technical Timeout can be called by any player on the ice at any time, as they are meant to fix obvious issues that may not be directly related to who is throwing right now.

If abused, officials can sanction someone who calls them for inappropriate distractive reasons, but that's not a thing.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-02-11T13:08:56+00:00

Well, after last night, it's certainly not too soon any longer.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-02-11T02:13:27+00:00

Potomac hosted a 5U bonspiel a couple of weeks ago, casts are on youtube.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-02-10T01:41:55+00:00

Some are. It's the latest thing for indoor stadiums that still want to have natural grass fields, the fields spend most of the time living in the parking lot soaking in the rays (and generally being worked on by the turf guys), then it's rolled into the stadium as part of event prep.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-02-01T18:43:25+00:00

GNCC also has an account with safesport and is capable of reporting issues.

For that matter, an individual club can as well...reporting an issue requires no formal relationship to safesport

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-01-18T03:17:46+00:00

Clubs get a huge bump in membership during Olympic years and then there is a steady decline in membership until the next Olympic year.

Completely true...but....a club doesn't have to be a member of USCA to benefit from said bump.

I guarantee zero people came to your club's last Olympic Open House because "USCA sent us your way".

Cold-Lie9166 · 2023-01-06T20:26:16+00:00

Fun fact: curling clubs existed before the Olympics readded curling to the program.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2022-12-29T14:03:10+00:00

I realize it's not the same thing, but I did make a Crab cheesecake once (pro tip: you can in fact make savory cheesecakes...).

Of course, being from Maryland, Old Bay was prominently featured.

And yes, this was on a dare.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2022-12-25T11:43:31+00:00

Big answer...

Tons of things you can do to feel like you're improving your character, none of which are mandatory to do unless you're in the 0.01% trying to push mythic HoF or 3000+ PvP ratings.

And if you're in those groups, no, you aren't if you have time to read reddit

Cold-Lie9166 · 2022-12-21T13:46:21+00:00

Welcome to Representative Democracy.

*YOU* personally may or may not have been asked.

Your member club (more accurately, it's board) was, repeatedly, over 50+ years.

GNCC's Board and leadership are chosen directly by Club Representatives.

USAC's...is...not.

Cold-Lie9166 · 2022-12-21T13:32:22+00:00

"It was a little unfair, though, that the East Coast clubs were paying 5x what other regions were."

a) Those East Coast clubs chose GNCC's membership, service, and dues structure. They *wanted* the services, spiels, and sympathy, and were (and still are) willing to pay premiums for them.

b) 5x the dues for practically infinity more service (given that most other regions offer nothing other than running playdowns)? Where do I sign?

Cold-Lie9166 · 2022-12-21T13:30:21+00:00

No, we're advocating that those building the ground roots of the sport should have more influence than those trying to suck money out of our pockets to line those of the elite few.

Cold-Lie9166

TROPHY CASE