Perils of The Scotties: Lose your voice, fall down and go boom

As the Scotties Tournament Of Hearts moves into the final four phase let's pause to consider, not the match ups ahead, but the dangers and pitfalls that these four teams have had to navigate to get to where they currently reside. The playoffs.

A swift and strong flu bug swept through the competition this week in Red Deer and there may not have been a team spared at least some of its ravages.

While a little cold and flu action is not unexpected at this time of year, it's not usually so pronounced and invasive as it was at this year's Scotties.

Two other perils are a little more likely. Both struck the tournament this week.

Alberta Skip Heather Nedohin, leading her team to fourth place and a showdown with Quebec's Marie-France Larouche in Saturday's 3 vs 4 game, had to do it with what became a rather raspy voice. Downright hoarse, really. A skip can easily lose their voice when bellowing out sweeping commands over and over and in so many games piled one on top of the other.

So how does one go about protecting the vocal chords? Maybe take some advice from an old pro. Someone who's talked his way through more major curling events than anyone. TSN Commentator Vic Rauter.

"I used to lose my voice when I got a cold," he wrote in an email, between games in Red Deer.

"I went to see the guy who was the Leafs' ear and throat doctor at the time. He told me about a trick used by singers including Tony Bennett. Flat Coke."

"So I would line up about 10 cans at the start of the event and pop the tops, let them all go flat and drink them throughout the week. Problem was I was usually flying (from caffeine) by the end of the day. So now it's hot water and honey."

Soothing to the golden tones, certainly. However that didn't solve the dilemma of maybe catching something. To help fend off the flu, Rauter says that he and his booth compatriots, Linda Moore and Russ Howard have been "practically swimming" in hand sanitizer.

So you've avoided the flu and you've kept your voice. Excellent. Next up: Watch your step. It's slippery out there and there are, you know, rocks lying around everywhere.

To some, watching sweepers chug down the ice with a take out weight shot is an amazing thing. Curling shoes do give you a bit of traction out there, but not much. Add the dance of the sweepers over the rocks that are in play in the free guard zone as they follow the shooter into the house and you get something that can be as beautiful as a river dance or as comical as a Yosemite Sam soft shoe.

Beautiful or comical, it can be dangerous. It's a wonder that more curlers don't get badly injured out there, at both the pro and club curler level. Twisted ankles, banged up knees, wrist and arm injuries, even a scary knock to the head can happen to even the most agile and seasoned of curlers at any time if they're not careful. Go to any local curling club and you'll see more and more players, especially the more senior ones, wearing some kind of head protection, some with full - on hockey helmets.

Sometimes players get hurt, as was the case with Team Canada Second Tammy Schneider, earlier in the week. Slipping as she was sliding out to deliver a rock, she wrenched her knee and had to be replaced by alternate Jolene Campbell.

Yes, people get injured curling and not just tripping on the way back from the bar with an armful of drinks, as so many believe.

Sometimes the only thing that ends up bruised is their ego. Take Manitoba's Second, Jill Officer, Monday night. In a tight, defensive game, her miscue was very costly, leading to a 3 point swing in her opponents' (Team Canada and Amber Holland) favour. Highly regarded as one of the best sweepers in the women's game, she inexplicably failed to notice that she was coming up on a guard directly in her path as she swept what was supposed to be a routine hit on her Skip Jennifer Jones' last rock.

If Jones sticks it (and she would have) her team collects a point and takes a 2 - 1 lead. Instead, as Officer fell, she clipped the rock that she was sweeping. That is a burnt (burned, if you prefer) stone, my friend. Out of play it goes and Canada scores 2, to take a 3 -1 lead. They'd eventually win it, 7-3.

For a curler, burning a rock in a crucial situation such as that is a bit like this.

Believe it or not, there is an art to falling in curling. Players do try not to burn the rock as they go down. In fact, on that same Monday night, New Brunswick Second Jillian Babin turned the trick, contorting her body like a Cirque du Soleil acrobat so as not to touch her teammate's stone. She was successful, and Andrea Kelly's draw safely nestled into the house to complete a score of 3.

They say, in curling, it's as much about the shots you leave as the shots you make. It can also be about the stones you burn and the ones you don't.