Cassidy, Brian

Year Inducted / Année Intronisé:

2017

Province / Province:

New Brunswick

Category / Catégorie:

Builder

Biography / Biographie:

Longtime Curling Canada chief statistician Brian Cassidy, known across the country in stats rooms by his nickname “Mouse”, was formally be inducted into the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame at the 2017 Tim Hortons Brier in St. John’s.

Development Of The Statistics System For Canadian Curling Championships (by Terry Begin)

Prior to 1976 keeping shots-made statistics (percentages) at curling events was done by many different individuals for their own use or interest. Sports writers often kept them and published them to augment their newspaper stories, and some keen observers kept their own performance records for events of particular interest to themselves. These individuals often developed their own “scoring system”, and consequently there were several being used at different times which were quite different from others. Some used an 8-point maximum for successful execution of a shot, others used 6, 5 and 4-point maximums, and some had a “degree-of-difficulty” factor included in the evaluation.

At the Brier in Regina in 1976, the Committee Member (Al Heron) in charge of arrangements for the media attending the event decided to have “scorers” keep shots-made percentages for all games, and distribute them. A 4-point maximum was used, evaluations were manually recorded, and computation of the individual and team results was done at the completion of each draw, photocopied and distributed.

About this time the International Curling Federation also became interested in compiling “official” shots-made percentages, and began using a 4-point system in 1978 at the Winnipeg Silver Broom.   A team of scorers was trained and brought to it and subsequent events where official statistics were being compiled. The use of the same team each year enabled enhancement of the system to include a degree-of-difficulty factor for each shot, determined in part by the scorers relying on their experience and knowledge of the game.

After an hiatus of two years, Al Heron from Regina (above) was brought to Ottawa for the 1979 Brier, and Committee Chair Terry Begin recruited a group of experienced “competitive” curlers to act as scorers to provide “official” percentages for the event. Again, as in Regina, evaluations of each shot were recorded manually, and results for each player and the teams were prepared using hand calculators after the games were completed. It took at least an hour for the results to be compiled, checked, photocopied and distributed to the media.

Since the statistics evaluated a player’s and team’s performance by turn thrown and shot type, the teams expressed great interest in having access to that information about themselves, but more importantly for upcoming opponents. Consequently, the reports also were distributed to them for their own analysis.

In the Fall of 1979, Ed Lavalley (Vice-Chairman of the Canadian Curling Association’s Public Relations Committee) approached Terry Begin, and asked if he would undertake a review of the several known shots-made percentages evaluation systems, and make a recommendation as to the most appropriate for the C. C. A. to use at its championships. It was emphasized that the scorers for the events would be recruited from the local host committee at each site.

For consistency it was decided to use a 4-point system very similar to that being used at the World Championships, but simplified by not having a degree-of-difficulty factor modifying each shot’s numerical evaluation. This made it easier to train new statisticians at each site, as they only needed to record the turn thrown, categorize the shot in one of the same nine categories being used at World championships, and provide a numerical success evaluation of 0 to 4. Because some shots attempted (usually by skips or thirds) clearly were more difficult and/or critical to a game’s outcome, the use of bonus values of 5 or 6 (still based on a maximum of 4) was introduced. This partially compensated for a degree-of-difficulty evaluation being done for every shot and the resultant fractional values which very much complicated computation of results.

Ed Lavalley then asked Terry Begin to undertake the task of implementing the system at its several major national championships, beginning with the Canadian Junior Men’s Championship in Sault Ste. Marie in 1980.

Very quickly he prepared documentation describing the system and its use: “Shot-making Percentage Statistics For Curling” and “Guidelines For Shot Evaluation”. These documents were the basis for training the scorers at each site, and are still in use today largely unchanged from the originals.

For each event he contacted the host committee and asked the chairperson to recruit about a dozen (but not too a large number) of the most experienced current competitive curlers to act as statisticians. He travelled to each site prior to the event (usually two or three days in advance of its start) and conducted training sessions for the scorers. Then he stayed on throughout the competition to supervise the statistics function and the preparation of the various reports for distribution to the media and the teams after each draw.

The shots-made percentages continued to be compiled manually for the next several years. In 1982 Terry Begin also became Chairman of the Public Relations Committee of the C. C. A., as well as continuing in the role of “Head Statistician”, travelling to most sites of the major championships for about ten days to conduct training sessions and supervise their preparation. At the 1984 Annual General Meeting of the C. C. A., he was recognized with a unanimous vote of thanks for his efforts in developing the statistics system and chairing the Committee.

With the development of computer technology in the 1980’s, it became apparent that the computation of results was an ideal application which would mitigate the onerous manual compilation function and speed the reports’ preparation. In 1984/85 programs were written for the main-frame hardware installed at Sport Canada headquarters in Ottawa, and the shots-made evaluations were entered and reports prepared utilising remote connections to it.

The rapid development of desk-top computers and laptops, and continuing technical difficulties and costs associated with establishing remote connections to the mainframe hardware in Ottawa, pointed to their use as an obvious improvement to the system.

In 1985 Brian Cassidy, a member of the Systems Support Group in the Computing Centre of The University Of New Brunswick in Fredericton, agreed to write programs for desktop/laptop computers which could be used for data entry and production of statistical reports without the need for remote data transmission. Brian observed the functions being performed, prepared preliminary software, and via correspondence, telephone and visits by Terry Begin to Fredericton he developed the application.

Fortuitously, the 1986 Tournament Of Hearts and Brier were being held in London and Kitchener, close to one another, and they provided the first real test of his work. Brian accompanied Terry to these two events, and the system was debugged and implemented.

To save travel and accommodation costs the C. C. A. decided to send only Brian to the major championships in 1987, and he took over the role of Head Statistician from Terry Begin, who had developed and implemented the system and fulfilled that function for the previous seven years. Brian continued to refine the system and its reports as he attended all of the major championships and supervised the statistics function for each of them over the next two decades. Brian also prepared the programming for and supervised the keeping and reporting of statistics for curling at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

Terry Begin.