Stavanger, Norway
Friday 26 April 2019
You won’t hear the Finnish men’s team yelling “hard” very often at the Sømarka Arena, in Stavanger, Norway, this week. It’s not that they don’t know this is a time-honoured curling tradition, but simply that yelling won’t help much.
Two members of the Finnish team at the World Senior Curling Championships 2019 are hard of hearing. Yell as loud as you want — they won’t hear it.
“We use hand signals,” said second Risto Lehtinen in sign language through an interpreter. While the two hearing members of their team do not know sign language the team have created a system of signals to show Lethinen and vice-skip Jari Hakkinen when to sweep, how hard to throw and to explain some of the strategy without talking. They use an official interpreter for more elaborate conversations.
“It’s not a problem to be hearing or deaf,” said Lehtinen. “A sport is always a sport. It’s universal.”
The two were inspired to start a curling team in 2008 after watching a curling tournament with a group of other deaf fans. Since then they’ve had an impressive run, making it to World Senior Curling Championships 2017 in Lethbridge, Alberta, and earning silver in the Europe Deaf Curling Championship 2018.
“It’s nice to be together. The spirit of it,” Hakkinen said, through a sign language interpreter. “It’s really nice to go with the hearing people, always we are together. We are helping one another, supporting one another.”
Their team hits the ice twice a week in Finland, driving as far as 80 kilometres to practice together. Have there been communication challenges? Sometimes. But that’s common for many teams, deaf or not. Overall, both the hearing and deaf team members of Team Finland say it has been relatively easy to understand each other.
“They’re really good at lip reading so we can talk sometimes,” said skip Oiva Manninen. “Sometimes, with sweeping, it’s a little different because they can’t hear our voice. It’s a little different but it’s not such a big deal.”
Finland’s second Risto Lehtinen (right), © WCF / Jason Bennett