Ferbey Four, The: The Kings of Canadian Curling

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.