Pro Curling

[JMurr]

Okay so I told the stories and now I have finally settled on a sport; Curling. In case you are not familiar with what I am talking about allow me to explain this I am going to create a fantasy league much like Yakball, Ripball, and Professional Dodgeball Coalition but in order to make this a uniquely different thread I am setting the clock back to 1889 and creating a whole history for the league. So with that said this is the synopsis for how it all began.

In 1888 side show promoter P.T. Barnum had a new idea to make money. In the late 19^th Century sports such as baseball were on the rise of popularity in America. Barnum took notice of how fans were flocking to stadiums and paying good money to see their favorite teams play, so he decided to test the interest in another sport; the sport of Curling. To do this he planned a Curling match to be held on January 5, 1889, the first Saturday of the New Year. The game would be played in Faneuil Hall in Boston, Massachusetts. Barnum would make money by selling tickets to the event. The game would be played between two teams. Barnum gave them the generic names of Team Black and Team White based on the color uniform he put them in.

Barnum found two Curlers to put the teams together. Each could have 6 players; a skip, a vice, a second, a lead, and two reserves. The men that Barnum hired would serve as the coach of the teams, but really the position was more like that of a general manager. Those two men’s names were Thomas More and Woodrow von Bartels.

Barnum called the event The Great Boston Curling Tournament. This is the logo:

Team Black

[Joester09]

Can't wait, just FYI. There should be a team in both Regina AND Saskatoon since Curling is the Provincial sport in Saskatchewan. Also the last few winners of the Brier (Canadian Championship, sold out arebas etc.) Have come from Southern Ontario and Alberta

[Tygers09]

This will be interesting..Is it me or is Curling an underrated sport? I live in Michigan and use to watch this sport on the local CBC channel from Windsor ON.

[JMurr]

[JMurr]

The first year's event proved to be a success for P.T. Barnum. Also both teams felt that they competed well, even the Whites who felt that had Skip Harry Behncke not had his accident they would have been in the game till the end of 10. So both teams returned for the second years event with the same exact teams they had the year before. Having enjoyed the event the year before, tickets for the event sold quickly.

Although Team Black would win 2 of the first 3 ends, Team White would flex its strength lead by a healthy Skip Harry Behncke they had 3 end in which they scored 6 points. These high scoring ends helped propel the Whites ahead of the Blacks. Following the 8th End, Team Black Coach Thomas More conceded the victory to Team White. This drama feed the hunger the people of Boston had for the event. People could hardly wait for the next installment of Curling. Word was also spreading around the country and up into Canada. One person who heard about the great events would soon visit the event the next couple years and then he would change the thing forever.

[kevsim1]

This is going to be cool. Your histories are very, very good, as were the pocketball ones. Right now, my only problem is that the scores are a bit unrealistic. Maybe its (My apostrophe is not working) just because its in the late 1800s, but anything more than a 3 in an end in pretty rare. You will get the occasional 4, but anything more than that, you will almost never see. And also, you will see a lot of blank ends in curling( 0 points scored) so that the team with the hammer can keep it going into the next end. Now please, no one post this:

(skip to about 20 minutes). Just a small thing. I hate to be that guy, but running totals on scoreboards just dont happen. They way that youère supposed to do it is a bit stupid, so you know, keep it the way youère doing it. gain, Ièm going to be following this post, looks really good so far.

[nas1787]

Yeah this is looking quite interesting, but familiarize yourself a bit more with curling before diving in. As Kev mentioned, your scores are really unrealistic, and the strategy of clearing the house to retain the hammer is crucial to the sport. Strategy is everything in curling.

[Beluga4]

WHAT? PRO CURLING WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO!!!

[JMurr]

Points taken and I will be working to try and adjust going forward. Yes, I must confess I am not a close follower of Curling but I have been doing some research on line and looking at scores from the World Curling Tour, Grand Slam of Curling, Canadian Curling Association, and World Curling Federation. You see the thing is I am not just simply picking who I want to score or win. I have attempted to devise a way by which I can run mock games using cards and dice. This way I am not just picking who I want to win but rather allowing for a variable of chance to occur. The system I devised is complicated and I will not go into it here but I want to be clear that I am not just simply picking the numbers for the scores and who I want to win. However to further complicate matters, and a contributing factor as to why my system is complicated, I do not want absolute randomness. As in real life sports some players are going to be better than others, for instance Labron James is absolutely a better player than let’s say someone like Luke Walton. If I were to play a mock NBA game in a video game, the computer would account for the fact that James and Walton are not equals but rather one is more gifted then the other. I want to apply the same consideration to my project here. As it goes on and players move around in free agency I want for some players to been more desirable to teams then others. Again let me use the NBA to clarify this idea; in the NBA when free agency begins each some there is always the big fish or the most desirable player available. This year it was Dwight Howard, when the Rockets got him this was thought to be the best signing of the offseason. The Rockets got the more desirable player as opposed to other signings like Andrew Bynum to the Cavaliers.

Now of course I realize I am using Basketball in my examples here and I dose not escape me that not all sports are equal. While the idea that better players exist in all sports is true, how such players effect the game is not the same for all sport. For instance in Baseball look at how the Angels have for the last two years signed the most desirable free agent, Pujols and Hamilton, but yet these players have not had the same effect on their team as would landing the most desirable free agent two years in a row would in the NBA. Now the thing is again I must confess my ignorance of Curling to some degree. I am not fully sure how this concept would apply to curling. So to that end I seek the advice of those Curling fans who are following this; thoughts, comments.

[JMurr]

Can't wait, just FYI. There should be a team in both Regina AND Saskatoon since Curling is the Provincial sport in Saskatchewan. Also the last few winners of the Brier (Canadian Championship, sold out arebas etc.) Have come from Southern Ontario and Alberta

Joester09 I was not aware of the fact that Saskatchewans official provincial sport was Curling. However I will be researching this and see if I can come up with a good story line to put a team in Regina, Saskatoon, or as you suggest both. I actually have written the history of the teams. I did it with no specific sport in mind however, it was at a latter date that I decided to do Curling. The issue of course now is that to some degree I have to now consider Curling and where it would have been most popular. I will try to adjust. The stories for each of the 41 franchises that have existed over the years can actually been read on the concepts board under the title Pocketball. Pocketball is the name of a game we used to play in my neighborhood growing up, my original idea was to adapt that old game into a pro game. I ventured away from that idea because of the fact I found I would spend to much time explaining a game no one had ever seen played before. So I instead chose a real sport. Anyway if you have the time to read them please do so, if you have any ideas shoot them to me, I am open to others thoughts. That goes for everyone on these boards as well, send me your thoughts. The only rule is this, once I have posted it I consider it concrete, I will not be going back and changing the past. For example I have already posted the results for the tournament of 1889 and 1890, these scores, players, dates, logos, and events I will not change.

[JMurr]

So going into the 1891 Tournament each team had won once. Each of them had been advantage team, or team to start with the hammer to begin the game, which alternates each year. For the first year in 1889 it was decided before the game with a coin toss. This year however Team White would defend its win from a year ago. Suddenly Team Whites Skip Harry Behncke was becoming a star around Boston. Attending this game was Andrew Carnegie. After watching this game he would toy with the idea of creating his own team. Following this years event P.T. Barnum would die on April 7, 1891. This nearly ended the event but soon, due to its popularity, Barnum's business partner William Cameron Coup stepped in to organize the event for 1892.

[JMurr]

Following the death of P.T. Barnum in April, his friend and business partner William Cameron Coup takes over the planning and operation of The Great Boston Curling Tournament. Going into the 1892 event Team White Skip Harry Behncke was a star, most of those who came to the game that year were calling themselves supports of Team White. Most expected that if Team White won for a third straight year Thomas More would be fired as the coach of Team Black. By the 4th End Team Black had built a 3-0 lead, but surprisingly Team White would rally back and tie the game by the 8th End. The final two ends however Team Black would score 3 more points for the win. Following the game Coup was approached by Steel Industry tycoon Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie had assembled a team of his own in Pittsburgh and now he was purposing a challenge for the following year. Carnegie named his team the Pittsburgh Challengers. Coupe liked the idea and he accepted Carnegies challenge and the two came to the understanding that for 1893 Team White and Team Black would be merged into just one team, that team would be called the Boston Checkers. They would play two games against Carnegies Pittsburgh Challengers next year. One game in Pittsburgh and then another in Boston.

[JMurr]

Boston Checkers

Pittsburgh Challengers

[JMurr]

[JMurr]

1893 was such a success, even though Boston dominated Pittsburgh, that William Cameron Coup and Andrew Carnegie decided to form a league. They hired the former coach of Team Black, Thomas More, as the commissioner then set about creating two more franchises. Coup, who owned the Boston Checkers sold the team to Mosses Kimball then went to Milwaukee and started a new franchise to be named the Milwaukee Monsters. Carnegie convinced another tycoon of the era to purchase the fourth franchise. That mans name was John D. Rockefeller. He would establish his team in Cleveland and name them the Cleveland Standards.

So this is the schedule for the 1894 season:

January 6

Boston Checkers @ Cleveland Standards

Pittsburgh Challengers @ Milwaukee Monsters

January 13

Milwaukee Monsters @ Boston Checkers

Cleveland Standards @ Pittsburgh Challengers

January 20

Cleveland Standards @ Milwaukee Monsters

Boston Checkers @ Pittsburgh Challengers

January 27

Cleveland Standards @ Boston Checkers

Milwaukee Monsters @ Pittsburgh Challengers

February 3

Boston Checkers @ Milwaukee Monsters

Pittsburgh Challengers @ Cleveland Standards

February 10

Milwaukee Monsters @ Cleveland Standards

Pittsburgh Challengers @ Boston Checkers

February 17

Title Match 1 in Boston, Massachusetts

[JMurr]

Logos for the Milwaukee Monsters & Cleveland Standards

Milwaukee Monsters

Cleveland Standards

[JMurr]

The League that was created is named the United States Curling Organization (USCO).

This is the logo

[oaklandhusker]

I really like the league logo. It's fun to look at.

[JoHyphenE]

The league logo could use some outlines, but it's a great start!

[JMurr]

The league logo could use some outlines, but it's a great start!

I agree. I will clean it up over time. Stay tuned.