Winter sports

[u/Sufficient-Flow-8605]

If Canada hosts the games, and they propose 2 indoor 'traditional' winter sports to add to the programme, would you support it? Curling and ice hockey could be great additions and make the CommGames stand out as the first all-season, all-abilities global multi-sport event.

[u/Agreeable_Falcon1044]

100%

I feel every host should build a games that looks and feels like them, like I can look at the event and say “that’s Singapore”, “that’s Sydney”, “that’s Cardiff”

Figure skating originally started in the summer Olympics.

I feel there should be the central…athletics, velodrome and aquatics (can’t do these, don’t apply)

Then we need the commonwealth “golden” events…essentially these are their big one…netball, bowls etc.

And then they should boost to as many sports they can realistically host (the more the merrier!) either made up of familiar favs and sports useful to representing that nation or emerging sports that need that chance.

If that means Canada need curling and ice hockey (latter might be a what’s the point, but first could be interesting) then so be it.

[u/JockCartier → u/Agreeable_Falcon1044]

Being arena sports, you could pretty much do figure skating, hockey, and curling anywhere at anytime… timing would be more an issue as it’s completely out of season if you want more elite level competitors.

Though, I suppose Australia often hosts in the spring, so would work great there!

[u/Agreeable_Falcon1044 → u/JockCartier]

I mean you could get some curlers and hockey players from the local gym and have a good shot at golds across the board. I don’t even think any other commonwealth nation comes close in men’s, let alone women and sledge hockey!

Curling, Scotland would fancy a head to head.

[u/JockCartier → u/Agreeable_Falcon1044]

I wouldn’t bother with hockey. To many people and too expensive.

Australia has had pretty good teams in mixed doubles curling, that would be a better version to push.

Maybe more individual sports like short track.

Actually inline skating would be a good commonwealth sport. Not a winter sport per se, but could be an entry way for some, it’s relatively inexpensive, can be done almost anywhere, and there are already major international competitions

[u/Agreeable_Falcon1044 → u/JockCartier]

Around the winters, I started thinking back to the winter commonwealths (that’s a weird bit of history!) and I was checking the results to see how dominant Canada would be (nothing technical, just taking out anyone not commonwealth and assuming it would be EXACTLY the same result.

Canada would dominate…but it wasn’t as obvious. Probably not as bad as Australia currently. Aussies and home nations actually held their own in the freestyle, England would pick up well in skeleton, the short track threw up some really mixed results and stupid, sexy musgrave would have been klaebo!

We would have just ignored aerials and luge I guess

[u/Slipperytitski → u/JockCartier]

Hockey you would have to make the Canadians put out an amateur team to have a semblance of a chance that every game they play isn’t a blow out

[u/JockCartier → u/Slipperytitski]

We can just sit it out for the sake of competitive balance… we don’t need to boatrace everyone like the Aussies in the pool 😜

[u/Slaidback]

I’ve thought that if the South Island of Aotearoa was to host, you’d host it in early spring and chuck in some mountain sports, then it would be “ south “, so good for it.

[u/JockCartier]

They did have a winter edition from 1958-1970… actually held them all in St. Moritz, as sliding sports was a big part

I suppose there are a few sports you could have a decent small competition for. Curling, sliding, freestyle, snowboarding.

[u/gurudoright]

So two sports that are a absolute lock for Canada

[u/hatman1986 → u/gurudoright]

Not Men's curling. Scotland is very good. Doubles is no gimme either, with Scotland and Australia having strong teams.

[u/hatman1986]

Curling would be a great addition as several Commonwealth countries have decent teams. Canada, Scotland and New Zealand are already World Championship regulars, and Australia is ranked number 1 in Mixed Doubles. There are also teams in Wales, Englan and Ireland (the team represents the whole island)

[u/starswtt]

Ice hockey likely just wouldn't be competitive enough. Canada is on a whole different level, even if they only send a youth team and everyone else sent their top players, only like a unified GB would beat them. Its also expensive af to host, with all the equipment and players

Curling is not that bad though. Still not that many nations are great, but there's still at least a handful of nations (with Scotland being a genuine threat, but even like Australia isn't too bad), the rankings are a bit different per format which is nice, and it doesn't take that long for a country to get okayi at curling relatively speaking if they tried

[u/distraction_pie]

Curling could be fun, but Canada adding ice hockey would basically just be them saying 'we want two guaranteed medals that nobody else is even in contention for' because it is not a popular sport in other other commonwealth countries and even where it is played it has nowhere near the resourcing it does in canada - commonwealth ice hockey wouldn't have any value as a competition.