New curling centre aims to join theoretical and practical

By Bob Weeks

Sitting between Lino Di Iorio, the engineer who brought curling the BalancePlus Slider and other revolutionary game-improvement devices, and Ed Werenich, the two-time World Champion who seems to know exactly what shot to play at exactly the right time, you can't help but be impressed.

The two share a love of the roaring game, but the affection comes from different areas.

In fact, when it comes to curling, these two guys are almost polar opposites.

Di Iorio thinks in theoretical terms, analyzing statistics and researching data.  Werenich, on the other hand, just kind of senses what's right.  That works, because it worked last time.

And now the two have a common goal: they want to see the game improve, particularly in the way people learn to play it.

Thanks to an idea the two came up with, that's just what's going to happen.  Marrying the technical brilliance of Di Iorio with the practical experience of Werenich, the two have created a new training and development centre, to help top teams improve as well as advance the methods behind training.

"We're very excited about it," gushed Di Iorio.  "We think it will bring the best of both worlds together under one roof."

The idea behind the program will be to allow top teams to come to the centre, which will be housed at a Toronto curling club.  Di Iorio and his associate Scott Taylor will put the teams through a battery of tests, designed to improve their slides, sweeping and team performance.  Then Werenich, along with another legend, Neil Harrison, will provide extensive strategy sessions.

While the formal details of the school haven't even been finalized, several European teams have already booked space for the fall.

As well as the player training, Di Iorio has hired two scientists who are designing tests for his team to work on, in the hopes that it will provide scientific evidence of not only how things function in curling, but how to improve them.

As an example, Di Iorio points to a broom that's been developed in Scotland which his group will use to analyze sweeping.

"It's a regular Hammer broom, but it has sensors in it that can tell how much pressure is being applied, how fast the acceleration is and so on," he says.  "There's so much about sweeping that we don't know and this should help."

For example, some early research has showed that sweeping a stone for the first half of its trip down a sheet of ice may have no effect on the rock's path.  While that may be great news for front ends everwhere, Di Iorio wants to prove - or disprove - such theories for the betterment of curling.

To do such research, the Toronto curler with the engineering background, has developed a number of tools, such as a machine that will throw eight rocks at once, with the same force and same amount of turn, an electronic split timer to gauge the speed of a player's delivery, and a video system to detect flaws in deliveries.

All of this stems from Di Iorio belief that the lack of hard data is one of the biggest problems with the development of the game.  In fact, he states, it's hard to imagine any other sport being as archaic as curling is when it comes to this type of research.

"Everything we're doing is based on the fact that there's just too many unanswered questions," he states.

Di Iorio isn't certain his ideas about culring are going to work, but he does believe in testing them to find out, which is more, he says, than what's currently being done.

Werenich is also incredulous about the strategy side of what's being taught and of how coaches are preparing their teams.

"Some of the stuff I've seen is unbelievable," he says.  "You just wonder where these people are getting their information"

He relates several stories of coaching by supposedly well-trained people that have left him mind-boggled. The same can be said for the strategies employed by many top-coached teams that have gone through Canadian Curling Association high performance training camps.

Werenich makes no bones about his dislike for the CCA methods and what that organization has offered for training.  Di Iorio is also negative, although perhaps a little more diplomatic in offering his assessment.

To date, the CCA has shown little interest in Di Iorio's work