Curling Patent - Electrically Heated Hand Grip

Similar to the first patent I discussed, this curling related patent also has to do with a battery powered heating element.  This time however, the heating element goes on the broom shaft.

Basically, what we have here is a heating element that can attach to a handle or shaft in a few ways (it could wrap around it, fit over the top, etc.)  There's a switch for controlling the heat and possibly changing the temperature.  There could be a little light for indicating if the device is on.  Pretty simple, but he got 18 pages out of it for the patent.  (Is that a sign of a good lawyer?)

While the idea seems to have been conceived in relation to golf, the inventor, Vaughn Marquis, also included a list of other possible sporting goods this device could be used with, including curling brooms.  It seems that Vaughn Marquis is also a patent attorney and the patent is written as broadly as possible.  For all you aspriring inventors, having as broad a patent as possible should help you derive some value out of it.  One embodiment he missed though would be heating up the handle for a curling stick.  (Go ahead and take the idea, aspiring inventor.)

I don't play golf, but I can see how this might be kind of nice to have on a cold day.  I can't really imagine though that the market for people who play golf on cold days is really all that big.  I like the embodiment of having a heated hand grip on a cane or on a walking stick.  However, there's at least one other patent related to having heated handles on canes.  I guess someone's figured out that's likely a much bigger market.

On the subject of having a heated hand grip on a curling broom, I can't imagine anyone I know using one.  If your hands are cold, you wear gloves or mittens and you might take them off later or when it's your turn to throw a rock.  And then there's the problem of dropping your broom on the ice and heating element melting that part of the ice.  I'm guessing your local ice technician would be unhappy if this happened.  What do you think?

World Senior/Mixed Doubles Curling Championships

With my mother in law in town, I was able to spend a few hours at the St. Paul Curling Club to watch some of the World Curling Championships.  Vice and I were worried about paying to get in because on the website, it says that tickets are $35 for each day.  We were thinking that if there was an even higher price at the door that we may not even want to pay to get in.  Fortunately, for St. Paul Curling Club members, the price is only $10.  (I asked if they needed some form of proof that we're members, but they said they didn't.)  The woman at the ticket counter was in Mankato for the Curling Club Nationals and actually recognized me and Vice from that (Kind of surprising, at least to me) . 

Vice and I stopped by the table for Shot Rock Curling.  In the center of the table, there was a pair of baby sized curling shoes.  Vice thought that my little curler should have a pair, but at $35, that's pretty steep (and ultimately useless.)  We learned that having the baby sized curling shoes in the center of the table has worked really well for Shot Rock Curling because somehow it just draws people in and they have to look at them, even if people aren't really in the market for baby sized curling shoes. 

On the first floor of the curling club, they've set up some bleachers in front of sheets D, E, and F, but they were somewhat empty when we were there because the US team was playing on sheet G.  Upstairs, they had chairs all along the glass and then long taller tables with high top chairs behind.  Normally, the club isn't set up for a large audience and I was curious to see what would happen with a big event like this.

Vice and I sat upstairs so that we could get some food and drinks.  We sat in front of sheets A, B, and C.  Korea was playing Finland in Mixed Doubles on sheet A, Estonia was playing New Zealand in Mixed Doubles on sheet B, and Russia was playing Australia on sheet C.  I think it's interesting to see all these random countries there.  I mean, who knew that there was curling in New Zealand? 

We were sitting by another St. Paul Curling Club manager.  I asked him whether or not I would win at least one game if I were competing in mixed doubles, and, unlike Dex, believed that I would win at least one so I thought that was a good (semi) vote of confidence. 

Vice and I were kind of surprised that the Championships didn't do all of the official type stuff we saw in Mankato.  The rocks were the regular curling club rocks and were not the kind with the hog line violation LEDs.  Also, the games aren't timed, apparently because they couldn't get enough timers so they just told all the players to go fast.  And lastly, the club's regular scoreboards are covered up with new World Championship type scoreboards, but with the scoring done in the baseball style.  I remember the club scoreboard first being explained to me five years ago and now I find baseball style scoring really foreign.

To sum up, we had a great time hanging out at the curling club for a few hours and talking curling with anyone sitting by us.  And we saw some close games especially with Estonia barely getting past New Zealand.  With a huge sigh of relief, the Estonia male player just held his arms up with his hands making peace signs after they clinched the win on the last shot.  Were I to ever play in a tournament of this caliber and actually win one game, I'd probably have a similar gesture afterward.

Curling Patent Application - Energized Curling Broom

As I talked about earlier, during the summer, I'll occasionally discuss patents related to curling.  What makes me qualified for this?  In my real life, I'm an engineer and I have one patent and one patent pending.  Also, I don't really see anyone else writing about this at the moment. 

For my first post on this, I've picked the "Energized Curling Broom" from Johannes Hoesli, US patent application 12/380884.  From what I can tell, this is also pending in Canada.  Let's look at the main picture:

Kind of a simple idea, right?  You have a "Device for Energy Transmission" which in the patent is described as capable of delivering, for example, "heat, vibration, or irradiation" that would then melt the ice a little.  It's wise to make the energy transmission device as general as possible just in case some new technology comes up.

However, I can't really imagine that with current technology that a battery that fits inside a curling brush would be able to power anything for an entire game.  Also, most updates to brooms have the aim of making a broom lighter (carbon fiber brooms, for instance.)  Adding a battery and the energy transmission device would add a significant amount of weight to a curling broom, which wouldn't be fun.  It would have to far surpass what you can get from an Equalizer brush head since you would have to work that much harder as you sweep.

I'm not 100% on the rules of curling, but wouldn't a device like this be illegal, at least for official type games?  Maybe no one's tried before.

For the several thousand it must have cost to file this patent in both the US and Canada, I guess I'm unsure the inventor would make money.  It looks like this patent was filed without a patent attorney, so at least there was some money saved there.  Also, FYI, this is actually the shortest patent I've ever looked at with only 3 pages, with only one page of actual text. 

What do you think?  Would you buy one?  I (and Johannes Hoesli) would like to know.

Updates from San Francisco

My brother has now played two games in his current five week league.  His team all has team t-shirts, which are very fun.  (Next year, you can see me play in the extra shirt he bought for me.)  They also all have Tournament Performance brooms.  Not sure if they all have shoes now, but two of them recently purchased the Olson Ole/Fly shoes, and I know they got some colors, but not sure which.  They're a very coordinated and prepared team. 

My brother skipped both of his past two games.  He won his first game, and even made a (lucky) double raise takeout that also required his rock to go through a pretty small port; they scored two for the end.  His team lost the second game pretty badly.  Apparently, the ice was also tough to deal with, but that's what happens with arena ice I guess.  A funny thing he said to me: "You're used to ice that you can see through."  I guess I am and I didn't even realize that one might play without that kind of ice.  Maybe at some point he'll remember a strategy decision or two and we'll discuss that here.

Dad's Little Curler

In case you care, my son was born recently.  If you know me, you've seen pictures of him already.  But for the rest of you, here's a picture of a onesie an old teammate made for me.  He's just a few months older than Second's son, who's a few months older than Lead's daughter.  Maybe in a few years, we'll be hanging out with the other parents on Saturday mornings at the St. Paul Curling Club.

Novice Bonspiel Recap

I had to get my post on the greatest shot of my life out before I forgot, but now I'm ready to write a general recap of my experience at the Novice Bonspiel at the St. Paul Curling Club.
First off, congratulations to the Rohde rink for winning the third event.  I finally got to meet him in person on Saturday and hopefully, my team will get to play his at some other bonspiel in the future.

Since Friday was April Fool's Day, we thought it'd be funny to show up in hockey jerseys and Vice and Lead wore hockey helmets.  I also wore a hockey glove when I wasn't throwing.  Also, before the game, we kinda messed around hitting a puck on the ice with our brooms.  And my signal for takeouts was changed to the cross checking motion.

Anyway, we won our first game 12-6.  I feel like the main difference my opponents and my team was that their lead continually threw rocks through the house and Lead kept his in play.  Also, Vice had a double takeout, which is always nice for making up for some other misses earlier in that end.  Our opposing skip brought root beer schnapps and we all did a root beer barrel after the game.  Cool team to hang out with after the game.

Because our first game was at 5PM on Friday, we also get to play at 8:30AM the following Saturday.  (We stayed for a while after our first game, but didn't close the place down or anything afterward.)  Our opposing skip is a guy that's subbed for my team before so that was cool to play his team.  I don't remember the final score, but I believe it would have been something like 9-8.  In the last end, they were down four, but only had the ability to score three.  I didn't really call a particularly great game, but I think we all played well and both Vice and Second had double takeouts.  And even though it was still morning after our game, we stayed a while with the other team hanging out.  (Then, nap time, at least for me.)

So now, we're in the first event.  I've done this bonspiel three times before (my team couldn't make it my first year).  My first two times, my team was in the fourth event, but played (and lost) the first game on Sunday.  Last year, we were in the third event, but didn't make it to Sunday.  Kind of a nice jump up I think.  And I think we're playing pretty well, and I felt like we had a good shot at things.

First, an old teammate was unexpectedly in town and it was awesome to hang out with him.  And Second brought his fiancee and baby (dressed in the same curling onesie shown here.)  And my wife and Vice's girlfriend were able to watch our game.  (Lead's wife had other obligations.) 

Our opponents for our first event game are one of many matching outfit teams.  (They have matching outfits throughout the season, not just for the bonspiel.)  They also have the game to match.  (Surprisingly, none of them had curling shoes; they still used sliders.)  I tried to play takeouts with them for a couple ends and my team was the one that missed them.  We scored four in the second end, but that was really kind of a fluke in retrospect where they missed a couple shots.  And the seventh end ended with my greatest curling shot to tie the game. 

It's now my first shot of the eighth end and I'm faced with this.

I think I have three choices.  We have the double raise (in red), which has the advantage of built in protection if I hit the shot.  There might be difficulty getting the right angle and weight on the shot, so we looked at the two draw options.  The draw to the left is probably the correct shot as a runback would be difficult, but I liked the draw to the right just based on what I feel more comfortable with and we saw other shots really curl in that direction so I thought it would be more likely to get behind the guards.  Of course I was wrong and my rock was open for a takeout, which they made.  Now, I have this:

I thought I really only had the option of the hit and roll.  I thought I hit the shot right where I wanted (doesn't always happen), but the rock just kept going until it was finally in the open.  My opponents don't miss takeouts and won the game 10-8.  Should I have done the raise with my first shot?  I guess I'll never know.

Still, it was a good run and my team played really well.  We had a good time afterward as did everyone else I think.  My wife and I each got a wingspan and we left with a pair of dish towels with curling stones sewn on (kind of cool).  Second won something else, but equally underwhelming.  We did not win the iPad or the wall of wine or the wall of beer. 

We had discussed a funny scenario (if we write a good curling movie) where I'm hoisting the trophy after winning the first event and then

It was my last novice bonspiel and I've definitely come a long way in the last five years.  I should have something more profound to say, but oh well.  My son will be born any day now (I'll thank him someday for letting me play this past weekend [already thanked my wife]) so I might not be blogging for a little while.  But I'll try to get in a post or two following my brother's games and I think I'm going to blog about curling patents through the years so keep an eye out for that.  In the meantime, feel free to send me a note and I could talk about someone else's curlng experience on here.



My Greatest Curling Shot

Below is a picture of what has to be my greatest/luckiest curling shot ever. 

My team is red and after getting the guard, our opponents drew to the back of the house behind the guard.  But then everybody just constantly made freezes.  By the way, my team is down four and we're in the seventh end.  We're feeling a little low because at one point we were up 4-1, so things hadn't been going our way for quite some time. 

Anyway, the opposing skip throws a perfect rock, basically right on the button and nearly frozen to everything else.  It's now my last rock (we have hammer).  There was some debate over going on the right side or the left side, but I felt more comfortable with the way it was curling on the right side and chose the shot shown by the blue arrow.  I threw that shot with way more weight than I ever throw.  Of course, that made me less accurate, but miracle of miracles, I hit the guard up front, which then went to the spot between our rock and theirs.  As if magically, their rock went to the side and my team scored four to tie the game.  Lead believes that the drag effect came into play here and I would agree because I don't really see how else this could've happened. 

We did lose the game in the next end (Why else would I be blogging right now instead of getting ready for my Sunday 8:30 game?) but this might be the greatest and luckiest shot I'll ever make.

A Conversation with Dex

For those that don't know, Dex is the general manager for the St. Paul Curling Club and he's also a coach.  My guess is that every top curler that comes out of the Twin Cities (and probably Minnesota) has spent some time with Dex.  However, if he's not too busy, he'll sit with you too.  Some highlights from what ended up being roughly a half hour conversation. 
-I might have an opportunity to curl in international tournaments due to my parents being from a country where there's no curling (and I'm the most experienced curler found so far).  I asked Dex if I had a chance of winning a game in such a tournament.  He said no.  At least he's honest.

-Vice and I volunteered to do commentary for a game for the upcoming World Seniors and Mixed Doubles Curling Championships in April since they might stream it online.  Dex said no (awww), but mentioned that it's better that it's on internet streaming because you can curse.  Apparently, you sometimes have to be able to say, "That was a [stupid] move."  (Note: I didn't really ask permission to discuss this conversation with Dex in a public forum, but I don't think this was a particularly bad comment to reveal.)

-The opposing skip asked Dex about the drag effect which I had never heard of.  Dex gave us a good demonstration (using beer glasses), but if you've never heard of it, this youtube video should give you some idea on it.  Completely unintuitive.

-My team is comprised of scientists/engineers and we recently devised some technology that we think would be cool to have in curling.  (I'll talk about it on the blog after writing a provisional patent application.)  We pitched the idea to Dex and he thought it sounded like a good idea and thought it could be used throughout the curling community.  He encouraged us to make a prototype, so let's see where that goes.

By the way, if Dean Gemmel reads my blog, I heartily recommend that he try to get Dex on for an episode of The Curling Show.  (According to Google Analytics, someone from his neck of the woods spent some time reading my blog after I posted about his show.)  Maybe I'll put this on twitter and we'll see if he responds.  I think it'd be a good tie in with the upcoming tournament.

Dex recently had some medical issues and we're all trying to help him out as much as he can.  The club is charging for its end of the year party for the first time to serve as a fundraiser.  Also, they're selling raffle tickets (winner gets $500) as another fundraiser.  Just want to encourage people to do whatever they can for Dex.

Game 18 Recap

Last game of the season.  (We missed our playdown game, which was on St. Patrick's Day.)  I guess this time I'll hold off on telling you the results of the game until the end of the post.  This game is a rematch from Game 3, yet another close game that my team lost on the last shot.  Like the last game, this is an A level team so we got a one point handicap, but they were playing with a somewhat inexperienced sub.  I was happy to have everyone together on the team, which I realize now might have only happened half the time this past season.

I didn't really play particularly well and I think basically everyone, maybe more so on my team, had trouble with draw weight.  I had two opportunities early in the game to draw basically anywhere in the house to score and the first time, it went long and the second time it was short.  Geez.

This game also featured a blank end.  This has only happened one other time for me and Vice and this has never happened for Lead and Second.  That was kind of interesting.  My team didn't have hammer and we basically just played the takeout game and we made them all.  So it's my last shot of this end and I don't have hammer and I'm looking at this. 

I think you definitely want to have something in the house to force the opposing team to do something.  I was thinking that ideally, you have a rock that's biting.  This way, a takeout wouldn't be in the house.  Of course, I couldn't throw that weight and I was light.  I would've preferred to just have something in the house (maybe behind a guard), but oh well.  Faced with the decision of going for one or the blank, the opposing skip chose the blank.  However, they only scored one on the next end, so maybe Coach Bill is right about blanking ends. 

Anyway, in the situation below, we're now in the seventh end and we're down two.  We've already been buzzed so I know that this is my last shot.  My team is red and with his last shot, the opposing skip drew to the four foot.  He had wanted a guard or maybe a biter, but in the house isn't really a terrible result either.

So of course, I need a double takeout with this shot and my team would end up scoring at least two.  My wish was for the green arrow.  Unfortunately, the second yellow rock jammed on our own rock.  They scored one and that was the game (final score 9-6).  It was so close though and there was a lot of weight on my rock so if the second rock hadn't jammed squarely, it might've barely moved out of the house.

Oh well.  That brings our final season record to 10-7 (we never did a makeup game for game 9).  Not a bad season. 

My Brother's Game 5 Recap

This was my brother's last game for this league.  Two of his teammates couldn't make it so he played lead while his skip played second (to practice sweeping more).  Two instructors played Skip and Vice.  Maybe a slightly unfair setup, but I guess it's still an instructional league, so it doesn't really matter.  He was impressed with the opposing team's strategy of throwing a lot of guards and really protecting whatever they had in the house.  However, my brother's team did win their game and they finished their 5 game season 3-2.  Not bad.

My brother felt a lot more confident in his new shoes this time aroiund so that's good.  If you haven't bought curling shoes yet, definitely look into that or make your own. 

His team got some shirts made and my brother got one for me too.  His artist friend drew it and it's very cool.  I'll post it when I get permission from the artist.  (It may also violate copyright, so I'm not positive I should post it.)

My brother's already planning on playing in the next five week league and is still trying to secure a spot for the Golden Gate Bonspiel.  In his words: "I'm surprised at how into it I've gotten."