Detroit Curling Club - Harlem Shuffle

Cool video at:  Detroit Curling - Harlem Shuffle

Even James Cameron Could Not Find Them

In 1974 Mr. John W. Taylor wrote:  “In 1941…a lousy Boche sub sank the ship carrying our stones.  Somewhere in the deep Atlantic lie fifty sets of beautiful Ailsa Craigs.  …we had to wait until the following season for the replacements before we could curl with our new matched stones.”  With those words he launched a legend of a story.  Fact or fiction?  This myth-buster says ‘fiction’.

1)  Oct 1, 1942 The Scots Wha Hae reports:  “In the summer of 41, a syndicate of 37 members provided $1,833.33 to acquire 50 pairs of new matched stones.  These are the stones we played and enjoyed so much this last season” (1941-42).  Conclusion:  We did not wait a season to receive replacement stones.  If the original order was lost they would have gone down in 1941.

2)     Dec 6, 1941 the minutes of the Board of Directors meeting state:  “R. Pearce reported that the new stones were in Detroit and would have been delivered today except for some technicality which will be cleared up the first of the week.” 

3)     Dec 3, 1941 a Scots Wha Hae article states:   “the new stones have arrived in Canada”. 

4)   May 21, 1941 the minutes of the Board of Director meeting:  “Moved and seconded that Robert Pierce, Percy Power and Nate Cornwall be authorized to purchase the new stones.”

There are 26 weeks between the authorization to purchase and the arrival of the stones.  With no e-mail; no fax machines; trans-Atlantic phone service in its infancy…we have to assume it took a few weeks to get the order from Detroit through the dealer in Canada to the factory in Scotland.  It also took a few weeks to ship the stones from Scotland through Halifax and across Canada to Windsor via train.

That leaves about 21 weeks to process the order – 147 days.  In the 1930s and 1940s, according to multiple sources, it would take 2-1/2 man-days to produce one stone from a block of granite.  That means about 250 man-days to produce our order.  At two stones per day, then making 100 stones in less than 147 says is about right.  Our conclusion is that the stones were shipped from Scotland between Oct 15^th and the 1^st of November, 1941.

According to www.uboat.net and www.sharkhunters.com there were 252 ships sunk by between June and November 1941, but only three ships travelling from the UK to Canada were sunk by German U-boats:

·       June 2, 1941 the Michael E.  Travelling from Belfast to Halifax.  Too early in our order process to be considered.

·     June 9, 1941 the Trevarrack.  Left Glasgow, stopped in Clyde on June 1^st and was headed to Montreal.  Again, this was too early in our timeline.

·       October 1, 1941 the oil tanker San Florentino.  It was sailing from Glasgow to Halifax to Curacao.  This is the only sunken ship that could have been carrying our stones.  But, it carried no cargo!!  It was stopping in Halifax only for fuel to continue its trip to Curacao to load up with oil.

·         In November 1941 there were no lost ships heading to Canada from Great Britain.

Conclusion:  There are no curling stones setting on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean that could have belonged to The Detroit Curling Club.

On the other hand, it makes a great story to tell visitors, new members and especially reporters (they love to print it).  So, if you do not tell anyone that the story is a myth then I will not tell either.

Happy Scuba Diving, Angus

Guests Curling at The Detroit Curling Club

Some fun footage here...

Thanks to Mike M.

The Broom and The Bottle

Last week’s James Bond article generated two reader questions.  What is the wooden ‘bowling pin’ in the video used for?  When were push-brooms or brushes first used?

In many curling photographs from Europe we see the use of a tee-marker.  In Scotland they are called ‘bottles’.   In Switzerland they are called ‘dollies’.  Painting the circles is a comparatively recent custom. For a large part of the history of curling the curler played to a house which was only scored in the ice. It was difficult to see from the hack how the stones lay in relation to the tee.

 

The original way of reducing this difficulty was to mark the tee with a movable object, known as the 'tee-marker'. This was usually made of wood so that if a stone were to come into contact with it, it did nothing to affect the running of the stone. The marker had to be small in cross-section so that it took up as little room as possible and high so that it could be seen above any stones that were lying near it. What better shape for this device than a bottle? Hence in many places the 'tee-marker' was known as 'the bottle'.  We thank Bob Cowan for this information.  You can read more at his curling blog.

As for curling push brooms or brushes…We have seen photographs from the 1800s in Scotland that clearly show curlers using brushes.  “The Curler Companion” by W.H. Murray states:  “It was during the 1922 tour that the Scots introduced the long-handled push-brush to North America”.  During this tour of Canada and The USA the Scots visited The Detroit Curling Club in February 1923.  We have photographs and newspaper articles around The Club that show the brush in use by the Scots.

The picture below was taken at The Detroit Curling Club during the 1949 Scots Tour.  Note the HOG line marker on the wall…

From personal experience, it was during the mid-1980s that the brush became popular with USA and Canadian curlers.

The Name is Bond. James (The Curler) Bond

There have been 23 James Bond films over the last 51 years.  The 6^th film – On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – in 1969 had a brief curling scene.  George Lazenby played 007 (his only Bond role) and actually threw a couple stones.  The scene was filmed at Piz Gloria a revolving restaurant on the Shilthorn near Mürren in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland.

The name Piz Gloria originated in Ian Fleming's James Bond novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963), wherein the hideout of the villain is Piz Gloria, a mountain-top building containing an allergies investigation clinic. In the movie the location is implied as being near St Moritz.

The movie production team found the restaurant partly constructed, and financially contributed to its completion in return for exclusive use for filming the movie, where the building is shown quite prominently. 

Below are photos:  Then & Now.

 

The curling scenes from the movie can be viewed on YouTube:  Click Here

DCC Members Of The Past

In addition to the Dodge brothers there have been many other prominent Detroiters engaged in the grand ol’ game at The Detroit Curling Club.  Here we list a few in no particular order…

·         George P. Codd, the 42^nd mayor of Detroit 1905-1906 and had been captain of the U of M baseball team. 

·         A.B. VanZandt, General Manager of the Detroit United Railway, he ran the system profitably with a five cent fare. 

·         James J. Couzens, a bookkeeper from Chatham, was a US Senator and mayor of Detroit. 

·         Richard Watson – Detroit City Council. 

·         Alexander Dow was president of Detroit Edison (Henry Ford once worked for Dow at an electrical substation).   Mr. Dow introduced Mr. Ford to Thomas Edison.

·         Divie B. Duffield was involved in just about everything of a civic nature.  A Detroit Library Branch is named after him. 

·         John Ballantyne – a prominent banker.   

·         Walter O Briggs, president of Briggs Mfg. (maker of car bodies) as well as owner of the Detroit Tigers (Briggs Stadium).

·         James D. Hawks, president of the Detroit & Mackinac Railway.

·         John C. Lodge, Detroit Mayor and expressway builder.

·         James McMillan, US Senator.  He was one the first people in Detroit to own a telephone.

·         Theodore Luce, pole-vaulter.  In 1891 he won US Nationals with a leap of 10 ft.  6-1/2 inches and again in 1892 with 11 feet ¾ inches (this record stood for nine years).

·         W.H. Mormley, E.R. Palmer, Don Fraser and George Lawton (Skip) curled at the 1932 Olympics in Lake Placid.

The grandest member of all is the curler who pays his dues on time.  Is that you?