old david
Knee-Slider
Registered: Feb 2022
Location:
Posts: 9 |
Best shot, greatest shot – two different things?
Like many, I was dumbfounded by Nicholas Edin’s spinner. Yes, I would agree it is the best shot I have seen. Many in Scotland would never have seen a spinner, let alone one played and made in a competitive game. My first exposure was in 1971 against Don Duguid. As a very young man on my first trip to Canada, I hadn’t even heard of such a thing, let alone seen one.
What is the impact on curling of this shot? Certainly, elite (i.e., professional) teams might spend the many hours adding a shot to their repertoire that they might use once or twice a season. They have the practice time and financial motivation. The rest of us? Not so much. Would the merely excellent spend their precious practice hours on such a thing? I don’t think so.
I still think the greatest shot I have seen, albeit in grainy black and white, is Matt Baldwin’s last stone of the ’54 brier. The impact of that shot on every young curler in Canada, and by association the rest of us, is still with us today. The joy of the sliding delivery well executed was a key part of the pleasure in the game.
Mr. Baldwin has just passed, and with him perhaps the key understanding that curling is fun, not a business, but that is another story.
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04-28-23 04:59AM
