I have an idea

Team Whyte needs to leave Great Britain

How hard would it be to…

• Form my own nation?

• Get my nation’s member association approved by the IOC and WCF?

• Convince Ross Whyte’s team to become citizens of my new country and represent my country in international curling competitions?

If I successfully did those three things, there’s a decent chance my country would medal in the Winter Olympics. It’s too late to make that happen for the 2026 Olympic games, but it might be doable for 2030 if I get cracking. It’s a little more realistic if an obscure country with an already approved member association does this.

I nominate Monaco. They surely have access to lots of money and I think their 20 curlers would enjoy cheering on Team Whyte over the next quadrennial as they chase Monaco’s first Olympic medal. Drop a bag on Ross Whyte’s doorstep and make him say no.

My plan is not serious, but the fact is that after winning the Scottish Curling Championships last week, Team Whyte is now ranked second in the world on this web site.

They’re the second-best team in the world but also the second-best team in Scotland. (You might question why Team Whyte is not better than Team Mouat given that Whyte has won the last two Scottish Championships, but Whyte is 3-9 in all games against Mouat over the last two seasons, so Bruce is still king based on the larger sample size.)

Team Whyte is a mere fourth in the world curling team rankings. I haven’t done a deep-dive into why they’re lower there than in mine, but for one thing, Team Whyte doesn’t win as many events as you’d think given that they almost always qualify for the playoffs, regardless of the quality of the field. On the ratings page we break down wins against the top ten teams and Whyte is 11-14, but 14 of those 23 games have been against the top five and Whyte is one of those teams, so they’ve played 14 games against the four toughest teams they could play. That’s partly a result of them qualifying in all four slams so far this season. (They qualified for the playoffs in ten consecutive slams dating back two years now, though with just one win.)

But the subtle thing that the points system misses is that when Team Whyte wins, they rarely have to play the final stone in the final end, meaning they often win convincingly. Just 10 of Whyte’s 46 wins have had a score posted in the final end. Compare this to #3 Team Dunstone, who’ve had 15 of their 45 wins play out the final end. Or even #5 Team Gushue, who is notoriously struggling this year. In over half of their 37 wins (19) they’ve had to play out the final end - and Gushue got to play in the Pan-Continental Championships which included a few weaker opponents that allowed him to pad his total of dominant wins.

If you’re wondering, 21 of Mouat’s 68 wins played to a score in the final end. Team Whyte has no equal in terms of how they win games, and from a predictive standpoint, that matters. The flip side is fun, too. Of their 17 losses, 11 have posted a score in the final end, which is in line with other top teams. And all but 3 of those games have been against top 8 teams. Though, shouts to Mouat, who has not played out the final end just twice in 12 losses. It’s worth noting that one of those two was against Whyte in the Scottish final.

Just a month ago, Team Whyte was a mere 8th in the world ratings (and 11th based on points accrued this season only). But the underlying performance always suggested they were much better. They were third here at the same time, largely based on how they won just as much as who they beat.

Unfortunately, Scotland doesn’t automatically reward its national champ with a place in the world championships. Whyte found that out last year after beating Mouat in the Scottish championships. Curling is sort of weird (and possibly unique?) among sports in that many national championships don’t directly lead to a berth in world events - and furthermore, a lot of fans seem to want it this way. It’s a shame for Team Whyte, who would possibly be the favorite to win worlds if they were sent there. And it’s not like they’d do damage to Scotland’s standing in Olympic qualification.¹

But if Scottish Curling denies Whyte again, I’d recommend the team heads to Monaco and figure things out. Given their youth, they could be the second-best team in curling in the next quadrennial (and that’s assuming Team Mouat wants to keep doing this and not opt for early retirement as the back end of Eve Muirhead’s team did). And since the curling establishment only allows one team per country to compete for championships², their opportunity for gold has to go through another country.

1. In the extremely, extremely, extremely unlikely event that Scotland performed poorly enough at world’s this year to not qualify - and to be clear, this would require an exceptionally poor performance from Scotland, along with a few things going exactly right for other countries - you’d just send Mouat to the Olympic Qualification Event to secure the berth.

2. This is another interesting curling thing that never really gets questioned. There isn’t really a norm for small-team Olympic sports, but some events like bobsledding and beach volleyball allow multiple teams from countries to qualify.