Like Don Chevrier before him, and Doug Maxwell back at the end of August, Don Wittman has now donned a headset up in the clouds. And like the previous two gentlemen mentioned, we here at The Curling News are, once again, days late in posting something about him.
The truth is, such writing is proving to be exceedingly, agonizingly difficult. And now, we are getting somewhat angry. What a disaster the last six months have been. The legends of our sport are dying, seemingly all in a row, and the legacy of curling is hurting, plain and simple.
Witt’s passing has brought forth a ton of great memories, and some of our favourites come from Murray McCormick, from Kirk Penton, from Ted Wyman, and from yet another Winnipegger, Paul Friesen, who attended yesterday’s funeral.
And leave it to the curling media, naturally, to talk loudest about Witt’s legendary sense of humour. Bob Weeks does so here, and he also points out here that competitors in this week’s Grand Slam will be wearing special “DW” crests on their uniforms.
Finally, we have Al Cameron, who in turn leads us into this fabulous, conclusive piece by Paul Wiecek. And one of his tales rings familiar.
The publisher of The Curling News, George Karrys, spent two years in the CBC Championship Curling broadcast booth, right beside Wittman, as the network’s research guy. At the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Karrys found himself hanging around the rinkboards – a favourite Witt haunting ground – on practice day, just before competition was to start.
“Witt was telling the story of how he was the first on the scene at the terrorist incident at the 1972 Munich Games,” said Karrys. “Everyone’s been writing about what he did to get so close, but they haven’t mentioned how he and CBC were there ahead of everybody, including the U.S. network which got all the credit for ‘on-the-spot reporting.’
“But Witt pointed out, in Turin, that CBC wasn’t running his stuff. Not until the Yanks, and the rest of the world, had arrived on the scene and started beaming their stuff out. Somebody at CBC management ‘chickened out’ right ast the start, and didn’t use his reports, and a huge opportunity was missed. ‘I couldn’t believe it’, said Witt. But typical of him, he probably didn’t talk about it much.”
It was at that point that Karrys turned to the veteran and said “Dammit Witt, I should write your book.”
“Witt turned to me and said, ‘Do you know any publishers?’ And when I said yes, he said ‘Well why don’t you look into that, Jorge.’ And, like Wiecek, I only turned in a perfunctory effort... perhaps thinking there would be lots of time.”
Karrys agrees that the world has lost a great man... not just the curling world, or the sports world, or even the broadcast world. Witt had time for absolutely everyone he came into contact with, and he was thinking of others – particularly his family – right up to his final day.
And now, in the dying days of CBC’s Season of Champions curling coverage, Witt’s famous, legendary championship calls won’t be a part of the final chapter.
As we said, what a disaster.
Watch for more special tribute content in the upcoming February issue of The Curling News.
Elsewhere... because this is just too damned depressing ...
• Witt’s situation has thrown CBC’s curling coverage for a loop, but here’s a great story from Scott Russell on his attempt to fill the great man’s shoes – and the role “the curlers” played in helping Russell fit in ...
• BLOGALERT: There’s new curling content in the blogosphere, folks, courtesy of Regina Leader-Post and SWEEP! Magazine writer Murray McCormick. We suggest you check out Bloglines on a regular basis ...
• The Scotties are coming... and with two teams declared thus far – Quebec’s comeback kid, Marie-France Larouche, and PEI’s stalwart Suzanne Gaudet – the other provincials are up, running and wrapping up this Sunday. Here’s the list of provincial events and here’s some assorted updates and/or stories on...
Saskatchewan (and another one here), Alberta – with the Edmonton view here and thoughts from Calgary, here and here – Manitoba, courtesy of the Sun and the F-F-F-Freep... Ontario, thanks to Canadian Press, Nova Scotia, located here and here ...
• Kevin Martin starts another Grand Slam run tonight in Saskatoon at the Masters of Curling – look for lotsa daily draw coverage webstreamed live at this page – and some media are actually starting to take notice of his five Slams-in-a-row win streak. As the story points out, there are some who wonder if KMart’s success is actually bad for the Slam property, and if fans are beginning to tune out.
Not only do Martin and Sask rival Pat Simmons weigh in on this; Martin lead Benny “Heebz” Hebert has written a guest column in the upcoming February issue of The Curling News, coming soon to a mailbox near you. This column won’t be blogged or webposted, so you’ll need to find a hard copy of the paper. Good luck, as it’s a pretty popular tome... and we don’t send many bulk copies to clubs, as we’re sure you’ve noticed ...
• Speaking of the Slam, Sask Curling is still miffed at the Asham World Curling Tour for scheduling the Masters on the same weekend as the provincial Scotties ...
• Looky here, an all-Asham Curling Supplies team is still undefeated in the MCA Bonspiel ...
• Way to go Waterloo, as a few brave souls did the outdoor curling thing last weekend. You can read about it here, and also view an exclusive video, featuring The Wrench among others, in the Jan. 21 posting Video Coverage ...
• The curling rock episode of Discovery’s How It’s Made has made it’s way onto YouTube ...
• Could southwestern Ontario be getting another curling facility?
• A salute to Doug Gillon, sportswriter for Scotland’s The Herald, who is helping his newspaper celebrate their 225th anniversary with this retrospective column (and we thought we have been around at 50 years!)
Gillon, of course, is the man who first brought the secret of curling’s official 1924 Olympic status to light, whereupon the IOC and WCF were pushed and shoved along to eventual super-confirmation by yours truly, the 50-year-old newborn ...
• Speaking of Scotland, two locals made the finals of the successful new women’s cashspiel on the weekend, click here for the quotes and here for the news and great photos (postings from Jan. 18 thru Jan. 20) ...
• Yeah, we love the 80s... the music, perhaps, but certainly not the hitting style of curling ...
• Victoria has said yes to a curling academy ...
• The Potomac hosted a successful open house the other day ...
• And finally, NHL hockey’s Los Angeles Kings went curling the other day in Canmore, Alberta. They and some other teams – like the San Jose Sharks – tend to do this a lot. Here’s Kings goalkeeper Jason LaBarbera, to the Prince George Citizen:
I was on a team with Rob Blake, Mike Cammalleri, and (assistant coach) Nelson Emerson, and it was embarrassing. I’d never curled before, but we played three-end games and our team didn’t get one point. How do you not get a point?
(Anze) Kopitar fell on his butt on the ice once, that was funny. Some of the Euro guys had never seen curling before, they thought we were joking or something.
The truth is, such writing is proving to be exceedingly, agonizingly difficult. And now, we are getting somewhat angry. What a disaster the last six months have been. The legends of our sport are dying, seemingly all in a row, and the legacy of curling is hurting, plain and simple.
Witt’s passing has brought forth a ton of great memories, and some of our favourites come from Murray McCormick, from Kirk Penton, from Ted Wyman, and from yet another Winnipegger, Paul Friesen, who attended yesterday’s funeral.
And leave it to the curling media, naturally, to talk loudest about Witt’s legendary sense of humour. Bob Weeks does so here, and he also points out here that competitors in this week’s Grand Slam will be wearing special “DW” crests on their uniforms.
Finally, we have Al Cameron, who in turn leads us into this fabulous, conclusive piece by Paul Wiecek. And one of his tales rings familiar.
The publisher of The Curling News, George Karrys, spent two years in the CBC Championship Curling broadcast booth, right beside Wittman, as the network’s research guy. At the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Karrys found himself hanging around the rinkboards – a favourite Witt haunting ground – on practice day, just before competition was to start.
“Witt was telling the story of how he was the first on the scene at the terrorist incident at the 1972 Munich Games,” said Karrys. “Everyone’s been writing about what he did to get so close, but they haven’t mentioned how he and CBC were there ahead of everybody, including the U.S. network which got all the credit for ‘on-the-spot reporting.’
“But Witt pointed out, in Turin, that CBC wasn’t running his stuff. Not until the Yanks, and the rest of the world, had arrived on the scene and started beaming their stuff out. Somebody at CBC management ‘chickened out’ right ast the start, and didn’t use his reports, and a huge opportunity was missed. ‘I couldn’t believe it’, said Witt. But typical of him, he probably didn’t talk about it much.”
It was at that point that Karrys turned to the veteran and said “Dammit Witt, I should write your book.”
“Witt turned to me and said, ‘Do you know any publishers?’ And when I said yes, he said ‘Well why don’t you look into that, Jorge.’ And, like Wiecek, I only turned in a perfunctory effort... perhaps thinking there would be lots of time.”
Karrys agrees that the world has lost a great man... not just the curling world, or the sports world, or even the broadcast world. Witt had time for absolutely everyone he came into contact with, and he was thinking of others – particularly his family – right up to his final day.
And now, in the dying days of CBC’s Season of Champions curling coverage, Witt’s famous, legendary championship calls won’t be a part of the final chapter.
As we said, what a disaster.
Watch for more special tribute content in the upcoming February issue of The Curling News.
Elsewhere... because this is just too damned depressing ...
• Witt’s situation has thrown CBC’s curling coverage for a loop, but here’s a great story from Scott Russell on his attempt to fill the great man’s shoes – and the role “the curlers” played in helping Russell fit in ...
• BLOGALERT: There’s new curling content in the blogosphere, folks, courtesy of Regina Leader-Post and SWEEP! Magazine writer Murray McCormick. We suggest you check out Bloglines on a regular basis ...
• The Scotties are coming... and with two teams declared thus far – Quebec’s comeback kid, Marie-France Larouche, and PEI’s stalwart Suzanne Gaudet – the other provincials are up, running and wrapping up this Sunday. Here’s the list of provincial events and here’s some assorted updates and/or stories on...
Saskatchewan (and another one here), Alberta – with the Edmonton view here and thoughts from Calgary, here and here – Manitoba, courtesy of the Sun and the F-F-F-Freep... Ontario, thanks to Canadian Press, Nova Scotia, located here and here ...
• Kevin Martin starts another Grand Slam run tonight in Saskatoon at the Masters of Curling – look for lotsa daily draw coverage webstreamed live at this page – and some media are actually starting to take notice of his five Slams-in-a-row win streak. As the story points out, there are some who wonder if KMart’s success is actually bad for the Slam property, and if fans are beginning to tune out.
Not only do Martin and Sask rival Pat Simmons weigh in on this; Martin lead Benny “Heebz” Hebert has written a guest column in the upcoming February issue of The Curling News, coming soon to a mailbox near you. This column won’t be blogged or webposted, so you’ll need to find a hard copy of the paper. Good luck, as it’s a pretty popular tome... and we don’t send many bulk copies to clubs, as we’re sure you’ve noticed ...
• Speaking of the Slam, Sask Curling is still miffed at the Asham World Curling Tour for scheduling the Masters on the same weekend as the provincial Scotties ...
• Looky here, an all-Asham Curling Supplies team is still undefeated in the MCA Bonspiel ...
• Way to go Waterloo, as a few brave souls did the outdoor curling thing last weekend. You can read about it here, and also view an exclusive video, featuring The Wrench among others, in the Jan. 21 posting Video Coverage ...
• The curling rock episode of Discovery’s How It’s Made has made it’s way onto YouTube ...
• Could southwestern Ontario be getting another curling facility?
• A salute to Doug Gillon, sportswriter for Scotland’s The Herald, who is helping his newspaper celebrate their 225th anniversary with this retrospective column (and we thought we have been around at 50 years!)
Gillon, of course, is the man who first brought the secret of curling’s official 1924 Olympic status to light, whereupon the IOC and WCF were pushed and shoved along to eventual super-confirmation by yours truly, the 50-year-old newborn ...
• Speaking of Scotland, two locals made the finals of the successful new women’s cashspiel on the weekend, click here for the quotes and here for the news and great photos (postings from Jan. 18 thru Jan. 20) ...
• Yeah, we love the 80s... the music, perhaps, but certainly not the hitting style of curling ...
• Victoria has said yes to a curling academy ...
• The Potomac hosted a successful open house the other day ...
• And finally, NHL hockey’s Los Angeles Kings went curling the other day in Canmore, Alberta. They and some other teams – like the San Jose Sharks – tend to do this a lot. Here’s Kings goalkeeper Jason LaBarbera, to the Prince George Citizen:
I was on a team with Rob Blake, Mike Cammalleri, and (assistant coach) Nelson Emerson, and it was embarrassing. I’d never curled before, but we played three-end games and our team didn’t get one point. How do you not get a point?
(Anze) Kopitar fell on his butt on the ice once, that was funny. Some of the Euro guys had never seen curling before, they thought we were joking or something.
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