Memo to the CCA:Give the Entire TV Contract to TSN

Judging from what I saw during the Canadian Olympic Trials last week, TSN does a better job televising curling than does the CBC. By a long shot (or a long guard, if you wish).

First, the blathering of Brian Williams and Scott Russell is not matched by idiocy from TSN, no matter how idiotic TSN announcers/producers try to get in their shticks before and at the break of each draw.

Second, the CBC has far too much interest in people's faces. By this I mean the directors keep the camera on people's faces too long and do not show us the rocks long enough or often enough [btw, Ms. Eclectic has the same complaint about their coverage of figure skating: there, the CBC focuses on faces instead of feet.].

There can be a great or crucial shot coming down the ice, and we won't know it -- the CBC has chosen to continue showing the shooter's face and nothing else. If they want to focus on faces, the least they could do is show us a split screen and let us see the shot as well.

Third, the CBC seems to think it is okay to tell us things rather than let us see them. More and longer shots of the rocks, the rings, etc. would be very helpful.

At the same time, as I noted earlier, Mike Harris and Joan McClusker added a perspective and tone in their analytical commentary that was a valuable contribution to the week-long trials. I appreciated their comments very much, even though Harris sounds a bit dry and McClusker got a bit wordy at times. Overall I enjoyed them.

At TSN, the introductions were almost as bad as the CBC introductions to each show. The difference was that TSN focused more on the community and less on horribly over-done cliches. Also, some of the TSN introductory material was terribly hokey. Maybe they were trying to be funny, but it didn't work.

Linda Moore is very informative in her commentary. Sometimes Vic and Ray (and Linda to a lesser extent) go off on tangents that are too personal and too far afield for most viewers to care.

I would love to see TSN handle all the curling broadcasting, but with the addition of rotating teams of announcers now and then. The different analytical perspectives from the different announcers was fascinating, and that difference would be the only reason to let the CBC keep televising curling. But we would get better coverage if the CCA would give all the coverage to TSN and have them hire some different announcers for some of the draws.