What to know
- Cool Sweepings is a new Canadian comedy series inspired by creator Chris Sharpe’s experience growing up with Jamaican parents in Manitoba.
- Sharpe hopes the show will introduce more people from the Caribbean diaspora and other communities of colour to curling.
- The series also features a curling-inspired album performed by its four lead actors, who are musicians in real life.
- The Cool Sweepings team has launched a curling league in Winnipeg and a Caribbean-style curling tournament called the Cool Sweepings Curling Bon Spiel.
- The series premieres Oct. 30 on demand through Bell Fibe TV1.
What do you get when you combine Jamaicans, curling, and Manitoba? A new comedy series hitting screens across Canada tonight.
Now you’ve heard of Cool Runnings, but have you heard of Cool Sweepings? The new, high-energy comedy series born from creator Chris Sharpe’s experience growing up with Jamaican parents in the prairies. It’s set in a family-owned curling rink facing financial struggles, with the son and his friends banding together to save the rink.
“Just growing up as a Black Canadian, you’re exposed to hockey and sledding and other kinds of winter sports, and curling just happened to be something I was introduced to,” Sharpe told Now Toronto. “There was a curling rink across the street from my high school, and we had a gym class there, and I just loved the environment and the vibe.”
Years later, while attending Red River College for digital multimedia, majoring in film, Sharpe attended a class where students are required to produce a film or a TV show.
“My creative juices just went running, and I took curling and then added Caribbean, Black culture to it,” he laughed. “You know, there’s not a lot of Black people curling. But that’s literally how Cool Sweeping was born.”
Sharpe explained that there was a lot of joy involved in making a series that aims to bring more attention to curling, a sport he says many people from the diaspora and people of colour don’t have the opportunity to experience.
“It’s great to do something new, but at the same time, something that I knew people would be very interested in and would bring people together.”
Cool Sweepings: Curling meets music
But the Cool Sweepings universe doesn’t begin and end with the TV series; Sharpe explained that the team behind the show have also developed a corresponding album.
“The actors who were in the show, they’re all music artists,” he explained.
“With them being music artists in real life, in my head I was like, Will Smith, he always raps on the album, and then he acts,” the creator continued. “So we actually created the world’s first-ever curling-inspired album.”
“And then so our four lead actors are on the album doing songs, and they’re acting. So I always like to kind of say this is like four Will Smiths times four,” he laughed, explaining that every song is about a moment in the show.
They’ve also started a movement, including a Cool Sweeping curling league in Winnipeg.
“On opposite Sundays we will be curling, and we also created another curling tournament, a Caribbean-style curling tournament called the Cool Sweepings Curling Bon Spiel.”
So, it’s safe to say that curling has become a permanent fixture for Sharpe, beyond his work on the series. But what does he hope audiences take away from the show? Sharpe says he wants people to receive the message to never give up, through what he describes as an underdog family story.
“I also hope people take away [enjoyment from] a show about people from the diaspora and Caribbean people being in different spaces, and then just enjoying the vibe and how they come together.”
Cool Sweepings premieres on Oct. 30 on demand through Bell Fibe TV1.
