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Would the 2006 Gushue Olympic team be an exception to that? I'm sure Gushue knew Howard before Howard joined up, but they were from different generations and different provinces. (Not that, to the best of my knowledge, a sponsor had anything to do with that.)

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That's going to be a hard question to answer unless Gushue or Howard weigh in personally. I can say as a curler that the curling world is very small. If you want to curl against high-level players often, you need to travel regularly to high-level bonspiels where you meet a lot of the same curlers over and over again. It seems perfectly plausible to me that through curling they'd have gotten to know each other reasonably well.

Entertainingly, I ended up at this match after watching the trials during a trip to Canada. Chatted with the team after the win.

Had to look it up (http://www.amazon.com/Hurry-Hard-Russ-Howard-Story/dp/047083...) but in here Russ mentions how he got pulled in by the guys to help advise on shots.

It was an unusual arrangement to say the least. They went through their lawyer, made a list of the top guys in Canada who could help, and Russ was at the top. The lawyer called, and he accepted.

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