Randy Ferbey's four-time Brier winning team of Dave Nedohin, Scott
Pfiefer and Marcel Rocque is arguably the greatest curling team of
all time. Unfortunately, Terry Jones' book The Ferbey Four: The
Kings of Canadian Curling is not deserving of the same accolades.
Jones strings together quote upon quote upon quote from the fab
four, interspersed with his own jerky writing, in telling the story
of Ferbey's team. The result is a heavily-padded story that is
nevertheless shy on description of actual events.
For example, the story of a 2001 Brier showdown between Ferbey and
Manitoba's Kerry Burtnyk drags on and on with banal quotes such as
Ferbey saying: "I'm glad to be able to play Kerry. With Kerry,
we're good friends. Losing to him won't bother me at all. It'll be
quite a friendly game. They're just four nice gentlemen to play
against . . .". As for the game itself, about all we get is an
extended discussion of a pigeon pooping on the ice, a fleeting
reference to Nedohin's "off-wing double in the fourth to take away
a Manitoba steal" and the final score (an 8-4 Alberta win).
A chapter on the Ferbey team's icy relationship with Edmonton rival
Kevin Martin is again full of quotes that say nothing and few
particulars on the rivalry itself. Unfortunately, Jones, a veteran
sports writer, doesn't bother with the basic journalistic technique
of getting Martin's side of the story.
Throughout this book, one wants to scream, "Just the facts, ma'am,
just the facts." Of course, the reader wants colour and human
interest too. But the writing in this book is so lazy that it cries
out for some discipline.
Still, there are so few books about curlers -- as distinguished
from books about curling history or being a better curler - that
devotees of the game will want to read it anyway. The sad part is
that the Ferbey team is so great that they deserved a much better
book.