In the House with Beau Welling, President of World Curling

[music] All right folks, hi again everybody. Another episode of Inside Curling, my favorite podcast with me, Jungle Jim Jerome, and the one and only Kevin Martin, who does it each and every week? How are you Kevin? Hi Jimmy, how are you doing good? I'm in a good mood. We had a heck of a week last week at the slam so. Ready? Yeah, one of our highest rated shows all the time when we do this and when we have on the most powerful man in the planet when it comes to curling. Okay? Before we do that though, if you're not making any mention of my new look with my permanently tinted blue glasses, okay? Okay, the first question comes to mind is, "Why would you want them to be permanently tinted?" I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. And Bow, who's coming on shortly, he wears glasses. So I'll tell you this. So see the bags under the eyes, okay? I hate getting old by the way. My buddy says to me, "How old are you now Jim? I said I'm 64." He goes, "It looks like 64 is the new 82." So when you go with the red. When you go with the red, it's not awful. When you go with the blue tint, they cover the wrinkles, "Kav, you can't see them." Okay. I'm not only my super handsome, but before we bring them on, Kev, we've got lots to thank to World Curling of course. They've made it their official podcast. They are everything curling. Bow knows curling. I bet no one's ever pulled that on your bow before we bring it on. Kevin Goldlein knows equipment. What a segway Jim. What a segway Jim. Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Hey, you know what? Of course, I say this a lot, but it's absolutely true talking to Andrew Brett again today. And they actually have a new wheelchair stick. Oh. So I've got. Yeah, it's brand new. And I've got it coming in. I want to see it in the end. And there's a wheelchair league at the Savile. I want to go and show it to the guys and throw some rocks and so on. So anyway, very exciting. So yeah, they've got new products coming all the time for your. Now in the wheelchair, they'll be the top wheelchair players. They're going to play in the Paralympics or whatever the case may be. Or the beginners. But that's what Goldlein worries about. They are the choice of champions, Jim. Right on, man. It's only a few weeks away. I can't imagine that World Curling is busy at all. There's nothing going on. There's nothing coming up. Got to be great friend of the show. The head of World Curling joins us bow, well, how are you, bow? I'm fantastic, Jim. How about yourself? Well, you're good. You know, I'm good, bow, but you're kind of scaring me, bow. I don't know where we found you. I know it's in Texas somewhere. Well, you know, when I got the request to be on the official podcast of World Curling, I mean, you jump and make yourself available no matter where you are. So I happen to be driving in outside of Dallas, Texas. And so I appreciate you guys tolerating me here in the dark. But excited to be here and talking to you guys. Because it's certainly a very exciting time for all of us in the World Curling family. So it's just excitement is palpable. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, no kidding. Before we get to that though, you are in Texas. A lot of people may not know this, but you are a world renowned golf course designer and, and an improve of golf courses. Bring us up to speed. What do you say? You got like three projects on the go. Yeah, I mean, Texas has been a booming kind of market just in general economically, but lots of people moving to Texas. And so that's beginning a lot of golf reconstruction as well as new golf courses. So we've got a project here that we're helping Tiger Woods with in Fort Worth, a place called Blue Jack Ranch. And that's super exciting. And then today I was doing a renovation project and placed in an anatexis called Hurricane Creek. That is kind of a local's kind of club. It's like super really, really cool and really excited to be involved there. And then got another renovation in Houston, a place called Royal Oaks and another one in Dallas. A place called Ben Tree. So Texas, I'm out here a lot. And so if I'm not on the ice and working on curling, I feel like I'm coming to Texas. So I might need to go invest in some cowboy boots and a cowboy hat kind of deal. But yeah, it's great. It's great to be here. You know, I've never met, not only have I met a never met a curler who doesn't golf. Okay, I've never met a curler yet. He goes, yeah, no, I don't call. Not only that, but they're all really good golfers. All the curlers I've met are like right into it. If you're a golf fan, like all curling guys are, this is a big day because it is the first tournament of the year. And I just flipped it on Nick Taylor, Canadian, is leading the century. Or no, not the century. Nice. They canceled that. Yeah. But Bull, let's talk curling, man. You said that it's palpable for sure. The Olympics are in a few weeks. What happens when the Olympics roll around? Give us, give us how busy you are. What, what world curling is responsible for? What they have to do? How they got a sell to athletes and TV and everything. Yeah. I mean, so it's, you know, obviously a lot is still going on where, you know, just weeks away. You know, we start, we start competitive curling on February 4th, which is two days before the opening ceremonies. And we're going to curl every day up until the closing ceremonies. So 19 days of curling, you know, many times three, three draws a day. So, you know, of all the content that's get produced at the Winter Olympics, you know, curling accounts for a huge amount of that. So, you know, one we're excited about it too. We feel like we have a lot of responsibility for our contribution to the Olympic movement and the Winter Olympics in particular. So, it's been a process to get to where we are, you know, many years of work and lots of hard work from the folks in Italy as well as obviously our staff and, and, and whatnot. Our staff started to, to be on site now. We've got some final sort of testing of the facility and HFAC stuff. And, and it's just starting to really ramp up and just really, really get super excited. I think I'm doing, you know, three or four or five calls a day. It feels like on last minute things as we get prepared and, you know, been fortunate to go and be at most of the last several Olympics, but not in this role and, and, and not in a place, especially as Cortina. So, personally, I, I am, I am super excited and I know we've got a great venue. We've got great athletes coming. We're going to have a great competition. I think it's just going to be amazingly exciting. So, I just can't wait. Besides the obvious stresses of running, running this event, I can't, I can't imagine how you're sleeping at all at night. Everything's going according to plan so far. Yeah, I mean, I think there's always last minute little things, but, you know, I think we feel really, really comfortable and excited about the field of play stuff. We've got a few little logistical, you know, administrative kind of things. We're still trying to figure out, you know, you know, there's always a reason to not a reason, but like, whatever it is, whether it's opening up a new golf course or a new hotel or whatever. There's always these last minute things that seem like it, it takes a date of that. It has to start here to allow certain things to finally get done. So, leaving stuff like we've been talking about for a long time, we're still got some stuff we're trying to dotting the eyes on and all that. But macro like, yes, we're in great shape. And it's going to be spectacular. I really, like I said, I just can't wait. It's going to be a really special place. And neither can we be up before I bring in Kevin. But what's the big difference between this year's Olympics and the last Olympics in terms of teams who qualified or anything else that you can tell us? Yeah, I mean, so we've obviously we've got three competitions. We've got, you know, men's and women's and mixed doubles. So 30, 30 different teams participating. You know, if you kind of look at which nations you've got accounts for, they're 14 different nations playing across those three events. So you've got some really cool things happening, like in Estonia, making its appearance in the Olympics for the first time in curling and mixed doubles. And I think that's really really neat, not just for Estonia, but for, you know, many of our member association, maybe that are not as big as some of the traditional ones. Like they see this as a pathway of getting there. I think Australia and big stumbles are sort of the same maybe four years ago. So I think that's super exciting. But you know, we've got multiple nations. I think six nations that are in all three disciplines. But then we've got some that are, you know, Denmark and Japan, I think are only the women's and you got others that are in, you know, men's and mixed doubles or women's mixed doubles. So any of that, I think seeing these newer countries participate is great. And then I think you have like a, a cheque that's going to be in two different disciplines. I think that's exciting. So, you know, I just think it's really neat to see how curling is continuing to evolve. And I think the net of all of that is going to be, you know, extraordinarily competitive competition really across kind of all three disciplines. So, all three events. So, you know, we're excited about that. You know, I think comparing to the last Olympics in terms of it, you know, that was Beijing and during COVID, you know, sort of spectator lists. And so I think it's going to be very exciting to have spectators back at a level. at curling event. Being in Cortina is going to be special. It was on a history of curling there. And then I think just the environment with the sliding sports being there, Bob Sleeve, Luz and Skeleton as well as women's Alpine, I think it's going to be a very, very festive Alpine feeling or dolomite feeling feeling place. So again, I think it's going to be a great, great event both in terms of competition but also just in terms of sort of the gestalt of the whole thing of like how it feels. So we're very excited. Kevin. Yeah. Hey, thanks, Paul. For taking the time, I know you're busy with all kinds of things right now. So the building, let's talk about the building a little bit. Curling is really lucky in the fact that you get to use or buy plan, the world curling gets to use the building prior to the Olympics. Because I believe World Junior was there in the same building, correct? That's correct. So we had our World Junior competition last April that was there and it was really great. And it was a test event. I mean, we pushed hard with Milan Cortina to have our test event there. And we certainly, it was good that we did because we learned certain things about the building and the venue and helped them to make adjustments with some things. But the venue itself is really cool. I mean, it was the site of the opening ceremonies in the 19th, the last time the Olympics was there. And that's all been enclosed now. But the seating is all the, a lot of the old wooden type seating and whatnot. And so I think it's a really cool feeling environment and also think from a television standpoint, like how it's shot and it's going to be seen and perceived around the world is also going to be very, very interesting. So I think we are very fortunate that we have this sort of iconic type venue in this very iconic type place. Well, we've talked to obviously we've interviewed and talked to a lot of curlers that are going over and they are super stoked. A lot of them are going to Switzerland first for practice. And it's only if, so if people look at where Cortina is, it's not very far from Switzerland. It's just a few hours drive. So you can be in Switzerland, do your training, do your practicing because curling once again, you mentioned it that it's 19 straight days longer than what the Olympics actually is. So, so to have mixed doubles and then switch, there's a lot of moving parts as far as moving athletes in. And then a lot of them play both disciplines, but not all of them. So then you've got some moving out and others moving in and it's quite, there's a lot of moving parts, but yeah, so maybe a little bit about that part of trying to get that organized because I can't even imagine it's a huge amount of organization and you know, we've been enforcing it in that, you know, we had in the line Cortina higher Tom Brewster early on to help advise with some of the planning and logistics of all this. And I think that's been a big benefit for us in terms of having that sort of, you know, person that really knows, ends in ounce of curling, being there to help advise and whatnot. And then obviously our staff, you know, has been working really, really, really hard with everybody and getting everything organized, not just for our, you know, athletes, but for, you know, our technical delegates, the technical officials, umpires, media, you know, everything. So it is quite an ordeal. And more ordeal sounds negative, like it's not negative, but it's quite an undertaking in terms of getting all this organized. And I feel like, you know, there were times where your things didn't go as fast as we hoped they had, um, and the incredible number of phone calls and Zoom meetings and site visits and all this kind of stuff, but like you see the payoff of all that as we approach of, you know, feel like we're really good shape to to host a special event. But what, um, give us an idea of when a, when a team does qualify, let's use Canada, for example, when, when they do qualify for the Olympics, Brad Jacobs on the, on the mid-side Rachel Holman on the women's, do the countries look after travel and all those arrangements and family stuff and ticket requests and all that? Or is world curling gotta look after all these, like you, I forget the number you gave us how many are in there, but 30 plus I think, how does that all roll out for you guys? How do I, how's it handled? So the, the National Olympic Committee is of the different member associations would be involved in a lot of the logistics of, of some of that, but then, you know, we're collaborative in that process and then some of it's on us as well as with Belan Cortino, the organizing committee themselves. And so you've got lots of stakeholders sort of, you know, involved in all of that. Um, but I would, I would say like for, the logistics of athlete travel, I think that's, we're, we're, we're not super involved in that, but, and, you know, I think like, okay, and, you know, Olympic Committee would be, as such, it would be, um, kind of thing, but like it's such a big event with so many people. So there's, there's huge parts of it that we are involved in terms of the logistics of having to get hotel rooms for our staff, our umpires, our people, you know, that kind of thing. And, uh, and Cortina is spectacular as it is, like all of that's also super challenging. It's not like their big hotels or big venues and, and, and, and so the logistics, um, you know, we, I think we're in multiple different hotels, like just because to, to all the, the beds that we need for our, the people we are responsible for, it's quite large. And so, um, there's been a big undertaking about all of that, but it's in a good collaborative way with, with the local organizing committee. Let's get into the more, uh, into the TV part. All the different, the different television companies, uh, uh, in the world. I know that curling is so well-positioned bowl, especially lately. Um, you, you mentioned there's six countries that are in all three disciplines, but it is incredible how many countries now that are involved in the Olympic Games for our sport with Estonia being one, but, but you've got Korea, China, Japan, all metal hopefuls. Like they're not, they're not long shots anymore. And you've got all of Europe, you got North America covered. Philippines weren't far from getting in even for goodness sakes in the men's issue. So, um, there's just a lot to it. How do you feel about curling's position amongst the sports in the Winter Olympics? You know, I think, you know, if we're sitting around meeting so Buffalo winter colleagues, you know, everybody sort of has, while their sport is so important to the, to the, to the event. And that's very understandable. Like obviously, you know, with skiing, they've got substantially greater number of metal events than we do, but like in terms of content, like we're, we're certainly, we're the, we're the big, big person in terms of hours of content that gets created. And I think that's really important because, you know, we're indoors, we have a lot of content. And so to the extent that outdoor events have weather issues and have to be delayed or postponed or time changed, like we're always there. And so what, what ends up happening is a lot of curling gets shown around the world. And obviously it's a huge opportunity for us in the sport to, to capture audience and get eyeballs on the sport that it's hard for us to get in other, you know, in our regular sort of old championships and whatnot. And so if you look at the, you know, sort of viewing figures of curling, you know, they're astronomical in the, in the Olympic year compared to a non-Elympic year. And I think one of our, you know, long term things we're trying to work on is like, how do we, how do we capture and keep that audience between Olympics in some way, shape or form? And we're spending a lot of time trying to think through how to do that. But what's cool about it, there are many things we're cool about it. But one of the other things that's really neat is that we start getting audience in big numbers that we wouldn't see elsewhere, like from specifically curling, I mean, up sort of non-traditional curling places. So for example, historically, Brazil is one of our top five viewers of curling during the Olympics. And that's just spectacular, right? Yeah, I mean, it's amazing. And so you, you, you start looking at the demographics of where our content's being consumed in a world championship and comparing that to where it's being consumed during the Olympics is very, very different. And so that, to me, is opportunity of, you know, we talk about wanting to grow our sport and growth can mean more curlers, it can mean more facilities, but it can also just mean more fans. And so I think where there's a lot of opportunity for us to, to take this moment that we have in the Olympics and try to figure out how do, how do we leverage that year in and year out to help us pursue our strategic goals and objectives? Well, you, it's funny. You say that. So back in 2010, when we won, I've told people this, the bank, which and so on, I might have mentioned it on, on inside curling, you know, in the last six years, but of all the people that reached out to our team and myself, Canada, of course, had the most amount of people. The second to most wasn't the US, it wasn't Japan, like, but the second most in 2010. Brazil. Back then. And I've been telling people that I've been telling that banquets and stuff and I don't think anybody believes me, but Bull, just, it was number five, right? Is that what you said, Bull? I don't know the exact number, but I believe it's been in the top five of number of people watching in the last several Olympics. Bull, is it safe to say or is there any doubt? I maybe asked something I know, but I'd like to hear it from you. Is curling in a position right now that they are on a rapid growth period from many years now? You know, I think we have certain markets where we are growing and growing rapidly and then we have other markets where we're not and then we have some markets where or even declining. And so I think that's something that we're constantly looking at. If we want the sport to grow, and a lot of times, like I said earlier, I get asked, what does that mean? Like what do you mean grow the sport? Is that more curlers? Is that more facilities? And to me, the answer is yes. It's more anything. Our ability to engage this sort of unique special culture that we have, or that culture to engage with more people, whether it be playing or watching what have you. To me, that's all positive. And so I think we have a lot of opportunity to really grow curling, continue to grow curling. Obviously, I'm from the United States, and it's grown pretty significantly here. This is one of our more growing places. I think there's things to learn about how curling has grown and how facilities have been developed here, and look, how do we take that to other places. But at the same time, we've started to lean more and more into floor curling, which I know maybe seems y'all may question that, but we see that as an opportunity of really engaging maybe in places that don't have ice in a way that we historically have not been able to do. And we think that can be some significant growth around that as sort of an entry point into curling. But it doesn't have to be a place without ice. And it obviously has been a lot of success that's taken floor curling to kids in schools in Canada. So I think there's just a way to engage more. So one of the things that's going to be happening in London is we've got a pretty massive floor curling tournament going on, kind of all throughout and around the Olympics that we're expecting, you know, 50,000 people are so to come participate in this sort of event, social type event. But we see that as an opportunity to not just have this event, but a way to capture the data, who these people are that have this interest and then figure out ways to use that in a positive way for us, but also for them in terms of, hey, you played in this floor curling event that we're going to have this open house at X-Wars Z ice rink. You know, why don't you come and do it? So like our ability to do those kinds of things is something we're trying to look at more and more and more and more forward with the specific aim of trying to quote grow curling. So both in Canada for one thing, like, you know, around the world, I'm not really sure how it all works in US because I'm working with the fourth Olympics now, both you can imagine with NBC. It's been a lot of years. All right. Yeah. I love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. But I know there's a lot of clubs that invite a lot of people in and there's thousands of people show up to each club and they might get to throw one rock because it's just there's thousands of people show up. Same in Canada. Canada's got initiative now that every club during the Olympics and after right before, bringing in curlers, new people to try our sport. Is that what you see happening around the world with the floor curling, which I think is big in Africa too? It wasn't one of the big things with Kenya and Nigeria as well when they've done them to their growth. And that's a, you know, again, entry point kind of thing. And so I think they've done that. I think we've done events in Hong Kong and India. So I think we see this as a real great engagement tool and you'll see, you'll see clubs in the United States doing it during the Olympics as well. So I think it's just, it's another arrow in the quiver of like, how do you engage with people in terms of, of, you know, common try sorts of things. You know, I think, I think around the world, you know, people are doing that like they're doing in Canada, doing the United States, they're doing it in Scotland. I think they're everywhere. And one of the things we did at our last Congress, World Curling Congress, which we had in Australia in early September, is we sort of focused the theme of that about a lot of information sharing across our members of like, how do you leverage the Olympics to support curling in your member association? And what was really interesting was to hear people, you know, compare how they do that. And it could be very differently from place to place. But a conceptual thing is what I'm trying to speak to is this idea of figuring out who has an interest in capturing that information and then be able to use that information going forward. And so, you know, I think we've got a lot of members, you know, really paired to do, to do that going into Maline, Cortina. So hopefully we'll, we'll see some real positive outcomes of that. Now, I can just speak even like for the, like for my local club in South Carolina, we help start back in 2010, like right after watching you win, Kevin, I started a curling club called the Palmetto Curling Club in, in Greenville, South Carolina. And we're in a rena-clown with Carl once every week on Tuesday nights. But every Tuesday, they have the ice during the Olympics, like, you know, they're not having any leagues. They're totally going into, you know, come and try this and do this, learn the curl thing. But they've gotten it down to such a quick and efficient way that they're, you know, they'll pop a couple thousand people come through that and have this really wonderful, great experience. And so, it's everything about the Olympics is an opportunity for us. Regardless of the scale of your operation at your club, your nation, what have you. Yeah. Super cool that it's a sport that says listen, you don't need to curl, but you're going to be a fan with all the other, you know, with doing that stuff going to clubs. That's great. Well, how are we, how are we going to continue to hook the youth onto the game? I mean, so I think it's a good question. And, you know, it is, you know, something that we, I spent a lot of time trying to think through. You know, we did a big rebranding sort of effort a while back. We very much trying to sort of change the image of tweak the image of curling and what that means. We want that look and feel of real curling to be something that's more accessible to young people. I think we're looking at massively increased effort in our sort of social media and, you know, how do we reach audiences in a different way? You know, clips and, you know, these kinds of things. It's one of the reasons why we're excited about, you know, partnering with you guys in the podcast is a way to just reach people in different ways, shapes and form. But I think we have to be mindful of that. You know, I think people, old people like me that maybe got an interest in curling and growing up and curling. Like I got it from watching television. Well, young people don't really watch television anymore. And so that avenue of engagement is very different. And I think we're trying to be very responsive of that in terms of, of how do we get content out and try to engage with people. I think we need to continually stay looking at the game and how we have innovations in the game. I think that the ability to have more content layered with data and like graphics and how information is reported. I think that's going to be super important. I think last time I was on, I maybe talked to you guys about some of the stuff we've done with on the golf side with TGL, the indoor golf league. Like that's very much built around trying to attract a younger audience than who watches, you know, the typical PJ Tour event on a Sunday afternoon. And their first season has been highly successful, but it's fast paced. It's very data driven. There's an environment to it. It's a very different version of golf. And I'm not saying we need to go do something like that for curling, but I think we need to be mindful to your question. To be mindful that the way to attract youth is going to have to be a different presentation than historically how curling has done it. And it's not just curling. It's all sport because of all this dynamics is changing as our species evolves. It kind of thing. You know, I think you're absolutely right, Boll. And one of the big benefits, I think, of the partnership between world curling and inside curling podcast, we've seen it with the numbers, the clips. So you're right. And Mike, Mike, our producer, he listens into all these talks. If I'm wrong with this, Mike, please come on and we'll fix it up. But I think I'm right. We've had clips this year, Boll, that have had viewers of almost 500,000 people. Clips. But I think you're absolutely right, is that the young people that watch clips on their phone. There's some pretty cool stuff that comes out, like Chanami when she came on. You know, just awesome Japanese lady who's a fantastic athlete. Very cool. You know, that drew a lot audience that day. And that's wonderful. And I'll bet it's a different audience than talking to Brad Gujoo. Or you know what I mean? It's a different group. So I think you're absolutely right. That's reaching millions of people that we traditionally didn't reach. So we can continue to do that down on television too, of course. But then, but the clips and the social media part that reaches totally different people. And we see it. That's the only reason I'm bringing this up is that we're seeing the results since we formed that partnership this fall. So I love this idea. And now to take it further, I guess that's a discussion we need to have. Two things. I had a great chat today with Brett Waldorf, your head official. Because you're two great things, I think great things that are happening at the Olympics. We've got the rule change with brushing, which we went through to the end, how it's going to be handled. And I was scared about it till I talked to Brett. I thought he made perfect sense. But also even more importantly, the handles. First thing, how did you get the handle situation fixed? Because it's been a lot of years and that's been kind of a black eye for curling. But now to have these handles at work, according to everybody that used them at the Europeans and the Olympic qualifier, they worked great. Yeah. So it's been a great innovation evolution or solution to. obviously a pretty big issue. And I've got to give major credit to board member and head of our technical commission, David Sick, from Czechia. He sort of onboarded this and has really driven that. Been our board champion of this and did a big tender for different vendors really to help up develop these new handles. Although we did choose a check-based company who Davis really worked hand in hand with them as well as with some of our staff to do this. And it was a really fast project that we first really trialled at that junior event that we talked about and had to make a bunch of changes, what not. But like we've got this really, really functioning in a good way. And so we're super excited about it and went up. But what I'm even more excited about it is that it seems that this is just like the starting point of how we're going to be able to use some of this technology that's in the handles in terms of going back to this data thing. And even like I can see a day where we're going to be able to use the handles to know whether stone is burnt, for example. Like if there's an improper touching of the stone, like we're going to be able to know that. We're not there yet. But like I think this, and then I think there's a way to start looking at some presentation graphics from the data if we can get the systems to work fast enough, such that we can report some more information and help script the television production with data that I think we're able to generate off of this. So any event, David and his team have done a great job. We're very excited about it. But we also see a lot of potentiality for the future for this to continue to develop in a positive way. That's so cool. And then hang on the changes sweeping. Basically, you know, when a great young team Casper at a US and they would say, "Ditch it, ditch it." So that's meaning you have that one strong stroke and mark end to use it. Well, lots of the best curlers use it. But not able to do that now. Bull. Yep. That's right. So I give credit to Jill Officer and one of our co-chairs of the Competition Rules Commission and and Real and Bob with our equipment group. But she's sort of championed this and been on this for a while. And we finally got this across as what we didn't want to see with the certain techniques. I think long term we need to have more work to do in this space. You know, because technique can be complicated to try to officiate. And I'm glad that you feel comfortable based on your talk with with with him that we're in good shape there. But I think we got more to continue to do. But there's no doubt all the feedback we've gotten from the athletes and the slams. And you know, for the stakeholders involved is everybody's very happy to see us having having passed this new rule about these these techniques. Super cool stuff, man. I'll tell you a super cool guy who's so busy. Bull Welling is the head of the world curling. Olympics are coming up in a few weeks and he's taking this half hour to talk to us. But we we really appreciate that. We're going to be we're going to be broadcasting Kevin and I 22 straight days. Awesome. Yeah, thank you very much. And we really appreciate it. Best of luck to you, Bo. The whole world's going to be watching. I'm sure you're going to have your biggest audience ever television-wise. And congratulations. Congratulations. Well, sounds good. I'm happy to if it works, I'm happy to come back on and give you guys an update from Cortina if that makes sense. Absolutely. We'll find time for our partners here. All right. So that sounds great. There he goes. The one and only Bull Welling. I feel like as a friend of mine now, that guy's so cool. You know, we are. You know, but I just get the sense Kevin that I mean it's seem it's so overwhelming when you try and talk to a guy that there's about 9,000 different things you could ask him. He's got the Olympics coming up. The guy seems like the coolest customer ever. I'd be like this. Wow, Olympics three weeks. Curling is in good hands, Kevin, with that guy. Well, it's really curling's done a lot in the last little while under under Bull Welling's leadership. So yeah. And this this Olympic should be absolutely fantastic. The fields, the three disciplines are loaded with talent in women's men's and mixed doubles. It's really wide open as to who's going to win. Like obviously, Rachel Holman comes in as a favorite. Obviously. But in but a lot of strength in the women's field. So I wouldn't put a ton of money on Rachel, but she's a favorite. And then men's men's who knows and mixed doubles is wild mixed doubles. This will be the best mixed doubles field ever. So yeah, it's really looking good on the Olympic side and and curling's growth. It's just fun to talk to Bull. How about how about this one? And yes, you heard him correctly. If you thought you heard him wrong, that there's going to be some 50,000 people who show up at a venue in London, England. I'm guessing London, England for floor curing. What? 50,000. I have what? Have you ever floor curled? I haven't done it yet. I haven't. My grandma used to actually, but I never have, but it's pretty popular. It's on a gym floor. I imagine like on a gym. I don't think it's in a gym. This is going to be in a stadium of some kind. 50,000. Well, I don't know if 50,000 at once. I think you know what that may be your piling to. I don't know. Five thousand. I have no idea. I have no idea. It's an awfully big at any rate, Jim. Yeah. Speaking of excited, we're very excited because we're going to bring you a bunch of shows during the Olympics. We've got two big shows that we're doing next week, Kev. We do. Yes. We're going to tape them Tuesday, Thursday. They'll come up something like Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, something like that. Yeah. We've got tremendous athlete on. I'm not going to tell you who yet, but great, great player who's in the Olympics. Then we have another special guest from Calgary, a sportscaster who's going to come on a few shows. We're really excited about that. We had another partnership deal that I'm not going to talk about tonight, but we'll talk about it next week as to what we just signed with a huge network. So that's exciting. And then of course, our Olympic coverage. So there's all kinds of stuff, Jim. And then of course, after the Olympics, showdown at the Salvo, which happening again, presented by Volvo. We've got the booster juice World Junior Mix doubles curling championship. That's exciting. And I haven't got approval yet from Chris who I'm going to talk to tomorrow morning. So I can't let any cats out of any bags tonight, because I haven't talked to him yet to get approval. But there's lots of exciting stuff there too. So over the next couple of weeks, you guys, we've got lots of announcements to make, which is really exciting. Did you actually Kevin go get a partner for inside curling without my approval? No, no. Only World Curling is still our partner. Yeah. No, no, we don't have any, any other partners within World Curling and gold line. Of course, man, but their response is not really a partner, and World Curling is a partner. But I you would know, Jimmy. And your guys with course, Volvo and booster juice bunch of other guys was showed out at the Salvo. So fantastic. Have boy, rev it up folks. Rev it up for all your curling. Come to inside curling. We're on from February for the Olympics, February, third or fourth right through until the next of 20, 44. Hope so. I hope so. Kevin, we can do it when we're 100. You and I have to take it easy. Everyone, have a good week, three weeks away until the Olympics. And we'll talk to you next week. A couple of great shows that we're going to bring you by surprise. In fact, to do what you're doing, Martin. Thanks, Jimmy. Whatever it is. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for listening, everyone. Talk to you next time on InSecret.