Notebook: Muirhead, Howard on Mattamy memories, new roles as GMs

TORONTO — Ever since historic Maple Leaf Gardens became the TMU Mattamy Athletic Centre, curling has found a home within the hallowed shrine. 

The Grand Slam of Curling has held its crown jewel tournament, the Players’ Championship, 10 times at the legendary venue since 2013. 

Scotland’s Eve Muirhead won her first Grand Slam of Curling title during that first event in 2013. She also made Grand Slam history by becoming the youngest skip to capture a title in the series at the age of 22. 

When the event returned to the TMU Mattamy Athletic Centre in 2015, Muirhead was victorious once again. And the following year? That’s when some began jokingly calling it the Muirhead Athletic Centre as she captured her third Players’ title in four years. 

Muirhead is back at the barn located in the heart of Toronto this week as the general manager for Alpine Curling Club during the debut season of Rock League.

“It's a very special place because I've got a lot of special memories, having won three Players’ Championships, back to back here,” Muirhead said. “It's always such a great place to come to. I think it's just the location as well. You're downtown and you're so close to everything, and it's obviously got lots of history as well, but it's great to be back.” 

Built in 1931, the Gardens served as the longtime home for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who won the Stanley Cup 11 times during their tenure. The team moved to the then-new Air Canada Centre (now known as Scotiabank Arena) in 1999, and Maple Leaf Gardens was renovated into a multi-purpose facility in 2012. 

Lifelong Leafs fan Glenn Howard remembers coming down to the Gardens to watch games with his dad. Howard, from Tiny, Ont., was also in the winner’s circle during the 2013 Players’ Championship, capturing the men’s title on the last shot of the game of the final. 

“Amazing memories and to see what they transformed this building into is just incredible,” said Howard, who is the general manager for Maple United. “Now, we're curling here, won a Slam, the Players' Championship here once on my own, and then to have this Rock League here now it's surreal. It's absolutely incredible.”

As GMs, Muirhead and Howard are responsible for setting the lineups for their teams and can freely move from sheet to sheet during the games to discuss strategy with their players. 

“It's hard to be in three places at once and kind of watch three games at the same time, but I think that’s part of it, isn't it?” Muirhead said. “It's part of the spectacular look that it's putting out there in terms of lots going on, lots of fun interaction, but no it's great to be out there.”

It’s a good thing Howard is wearing running shoes as he’s getting in his steps moving all over the place, too. 

“It's really interesting as a GM/coach running around the sheets. I really don't know what's going on in any sheet because I try to keep track of all three, and you kind of miss a bunch of stuff, but it's really fun,” he said. 

“I've really enjoyed running around and the fact that we can talk to our players at any time, it's fair for everybody. You give input, you don't give input, whatever the case may be, and I just think that's really cool for the sport, and I've really enjoyed it. I think the players are having a blast, so we're doing things right.” 

Rock League was founded by The Curling Group, which has also owned and operated the Grand Slam of Curling series since 2024. The all-new pro league aims to take an alternative approach to complement the traditional game, with six franchises of five men’s players and five women’s players competing in a variety of curling disciplines. Round-robin play through the week and Sunday’s playoffs consist of men’s fours, women’s fours and mixed doubles games, while Saturday’s seeding round features mixed fours. 

The games are designed to fit into an ideal two-hour broadcast window and an emphasis on the fun factor with a sheet-side viewing area on the ice and music playing in the venue at all times to keep the fans and the players pumped up.

Howard saw the birth of the Grand Slam of Curling in 2001 and believes Rock League could be the next big thing.

“I just feel that the athletes kind of deserve something bigger and better, a better chance of making a few more dollars,” he said. “A pro league has been tried many years ago. It didn't work. Everything we seem to try in this sport, we take one step forward, two steps back. This time, I think this is our best chance with the backing and the support and the leadership that we have in the Rock League. What I've seen, I think this is our best chance to go to the big leagues, and curling deserves that. These athletes deserve that, and again, I still think this is our best chance. 

“I'm pretty confident and really, really impressed with what I've seen so far this week, and again, I think this is the best thing that can happen to curling.”

The return of the pants

After a slight delay, the pants are back. 

Of course, we’re talking about Northern United GM Christoffer Svae’s colourful pants made famous during his days playing second on the Norwegian team with the late, great Thomas Ulsrud. 

For those unfamiliar with the tale of the trousers: Ulsrud & co. captured the attention of many during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver with not only their silver medal performance on the ice but also their sartorial selection of slacks, wearing Loudmouth’s red, white and blue diamond-printed pants. The pants went viral with a fan page created on Facebook (it was 2010 after all) that has over 359,000 followers.

Team Ulsrud continued to wear the funny pants on tour as well as other patterns produced by the company featuring everything from flames to jack-o-lanterns to kittens. 

Magnus Ramsfjell represented Norway at this year’s Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina and his team wanted to pay tribute to Ulsrud, who passed away from cancer at the age of 50 in 2022. Ramsfjell’s team wore the diamond-printed pants during their game against Sweden, kickstarting another viral run.

Svae said it took an extra day for his pants to arrive, being that it was Easter weekend, as the legend continues, this time in Northern United colours.

“It was always like after I retired, the pants kind of retired,” he said. “Then the other Norwegian team honoured us during the Olympics. If I was ever going to play or participate in something again, it's always going to be the pants.”

Svae is settling into his new role as general manager, with plenty of options to choose when it comes to mixed doubles in particular. He has the reigning Olympic champions in Swedish siblings Isabella and Rasmus Wranå, and also has a world championship pair in Scotland’s Jennifer Dodds and franchise captain Bruce Mouat. There’s also two-time Olympic medallist Kristin Skaslien of Norway and Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller, who handled double duty in mixed doubles and men’s curling in Milano Cortina. 

So far he’s gone with Skaslien and Schwaller twice and has paired Italy’s Giulia Zardini Lacedelli with Rasmus Wranå for a couple of games, too. 

“When I first looked at my roster, I was like, oh my god, the Wranås, that's a mixed double (team), but then I was like, then I don't really have a women's skip. So I kind of asked the whole team if anyone else felt like skipping or anything, but it was mostly like, no, Isabella should do it,” Svae said. 

“Then it was a matter of matching up mixed double teams. Two mixed doubles players in the first, and then Giulia, she has played some mixed doubles as well. It was fairly easy. We planned these two lineups up front so nobody would feel left out or anything, so we'll see where we go from here.” 

Dodds discusses F1 season

Northern United’s Jennifer Dodds thought it was cool to see McLaren driver Lando Norris take an interest in curling during the Winter Olympics. 

The Formula 1 team posted a video of the reigning world champion playing with a mini-curling set, or “baby curling” as he called it.

Dodds is a proper F1 fan — and by that we mean she was into the sport before it was cool — and is eager to get Norris to come out onto the ice.

“When we saw that we were like, oh my god, we need to get him up here and try it properly, but we haven't heard again. Anyone from McLaren want Lando to try curling? I have my coaching qualifications. I can do that,” Dodds said. “It was cool. It was just cool to see the impact we had back in the U.K. It was mad.”  

Dodds is a fan of McLaren, but it’s been a frustrating start to the season for the two-time reigning constructors’ champions. Oscar Piastri failed to even make it to the grid for the first two races. Piastri crashed on a reconnaissance lap at his home race in Australia. An electrical issue in China led to an embarrassing double DNS for both Piastri and Norris. 

Cue the joke that the F1 movie has more Oscar wins this year than Oscar has F1 wins. 

Piastri managed to make it to the grid in Japan and finished second while Norris came in fifth, but McLaren still has some catching up to do with Mercedes drivers Kimi Antonelli and George Russell leading the pack. 

New regulations this season have seen drivers rely more on energy harvesting methods and having to be more strategic about when to deploy or save their battery power, which has led to mixed results. 

“The new regulations I find frustrating. I understand what they're trying to do, but at the same time, it's the pinnacle of motor racing,” Dodds said. “You shouldn't have cars slowing down, what, 50 kilometres an hour during a straight during qualifying? You're just like, oh, you want to see them going as fast as you can. Hopefully they can tweak it a wee bit to reduce that happening. 

“As a McLaren fan it's been a bit of a tough watch. It was good to see Piastri actually starting a race. … One step at a time, yeah, hopefully these five weeks kind of brings Mercedes back a bit.” 

F1 postponed the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian GPs due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The next race isn’t until Miami next month, and we’ll see if teams use the extended time in the factory to make the necessary upgrades to close the gap. 

“You can just imagine all the engineers are going to be back at base just like working stuff out. I think it's going to be an exciting season even if it is just the two Mercedes,” Dodds said. 

“Everyone thinks George is gonna be like sailing off. I think Kimi’s going to be really annoying for him, and he's going to be maybe not as much of a Lewis (Hamilton) and (Nico) Rosberg rivalry, but I think there's gonna be something there.”

Shuster leads the way 

John Shuster is enjoying his new/old role playing lead on Frontier Curling Club’s men’s team. 

Shuster started the week at skip, but general manager (and longtime teammate) Chris Plys called an audible during their first game. Plys moved Danny Casper up to skip and shuffled Shuster over to lead with Colin Hufman to second. 

Third Grant Hardie is holding down vice skip duties, as Shuster has been sweeping or at least providing another set of eyes for his brushing partner. 

Shuster, who skipped the U.S. to a historic gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics, finished fourth at the World Men’s Curling Championship this past weekend, but let’s not forget he also earned an Olympic bronze in 2006 while playing lead for Pete Fenson. 

“The grind that the worlds was, 15 games in nine days, the first day we got here, I was just like, man, it was almost like a foggy kind of thing, but I've got to feel much better,” Shuster said. “It's been fun. When you play a position, even like lead, what can I do to have the most impact positively on the team? For me, it's really like winning the battle in as many ends as I can and making my two shots as perfect as I can. 

“I think I've had good weight control the last couple of games, and then when I'm out here it's like how can I contribute because Grant and Colin are such powerhouses on the broom that I think I only had one sweep where I was sweeping where the rock was curling toward me that game, but at the same point, I'm the second set of eyes, and I've really been working hard at trying to help judge rocks and communicate end to end.” 

After losing their first two games, Frontier’s men’s team picked up an 8-5 win over Maple on Wednesday, helping the franchise earn its first match point in the process. 

"Yes, long time coming, three days, but no, it was good," Shuster said with a smile. "I think the four of us that have played all the games in men's together are just kind of getting used to the way everybody throws a rock and having some fun out there, but also now I feel like we're hand-placing draws and making great line calls on hits. When you do that, you end up being a really good curling team like we were today."