ORIGINAL OLSON

A lot of curlers have stepped on the name Olson over the years, and that’s just fine with the family. Olson, you see, is synonymous with hacks, and for many years, the company that bears the name of the inventor made a majority of the toeholds in use across the world.

Elias Bjarni “Ole” Olson was the inventor of the rubber hack. Patented in 1939, it was the standard for almost 50 years. (Some are still in use today, although a newer model—the Marco hack—has taken over.)

Olson came up with his idea while playing in a bonspiel in Saskatoon. During a crucial time in the game, Olson went to play a shot, and his foot slipped, causing him to miss. At that time, hacks were merely holes chipped out of the ice. On his way home from that bonspiel, he stopped at a tire company and purchased some raw rubber with which he began to experiment, moulding it into different shapes before arriving at the final product. So successful was his invention that he was swamped by orders from curling clubs around the world.

Olson was also the first person to use paint on curling ice to distinguish the house, that coming in 1926, and he also invented a curling rink ice shaver as an inexpensive alternative to the Zamboni. Among his other inventions are a pebbling can and a rock measure.

Olson passed away in 1964 and was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame in 2000.