Wanna watch a TV sitcom about curling?

Background.  In the fall of 2002, I was in Ottawa for a few days on a business trip.  I had one day to myself, and decided to just go mall-walking at the local shopping center in downtown Ottawa.  The mall had a multi-screen theater in the shopping center, and I needed to kill a few hours.  Among the films being shown that day was a picture called “Men With Brooms.”

Okay, mind you, this is a family-friendly blog.  Get whatever perverted thought you had in your mind, OUT of your mind.

“Men With Brooms” was a romantic comedy starring Paul Gross (the Mountie from “Due South”) as the captain of the local curling team. That’s right, curling. That’s where the “brooms” come into play, to sweep the ice so that the stone can curl past the hog line, into the house, and on the button.

Okay, maybe I spent TOO MUCH time in Canada…

The film also starred Molly Parker and Leslie Nielsen, and was actually a pretty funny film.  There was even a cameo appearance by the Canadian rock group Tragically Hip as one of the regional curling teams.  Men With Brooms won several Canadian film awards, and at one time was one of the highest-grossing Canadian films of all time (until a bilingual comedy called “Bon Cop, Bad Cop” came out).

Anyways, here’s the trailer for the original Men With Brooms film.

It’s actually a pretty funny film, and I did enjoy watching it – so much so, that I ordered a copy of the film on DVD from amazon.ca.

So imagine my surprise when, eight years later, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has decided to make a half-hour sitcom – based on the original 2002 movie, with Paul Gross returning as Chris Cutter, the character he played in the original film.

Here’s a clip.

Now, are we going to be able to watch this show in America?

Very doubtful. The track record for any non-American programs appearing – in their original form – on American network television is low at best. Sure, some shows have made it past the cultural barrier – “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” “The Avengers,” “Flashpoint,” “Torchwood,” most of the content of “Masterpiece Theater” – but for all those successes, there are a hundred failures. Anyone remember “Power Play,” the drama about a hockey team that aired on UPN? And what about “The Bridge,” a cop drama on CBS?

And I’m not counting shows that are big hits overseas, that are re-cast and re-written for American audiences. That NBC version of “The Office” does NOT star Ricky Gervais, does it?  The Australian version of the long-running sitcom “Kath and Kim” did REAL well when it was re-cast for NBC last year, didn’t it?

So can I watch “Men With Brooms: The Series” online?

Nope. I tried viewing it on the cbc.ca website, only to find out that since my computer is not IN Canada, I can’t watch the show through streaming video.  And it’s not on the US version of Hulu, either. And my – er – creative Internet viewing skills – are not strong enough to countermand the cbc.ca non-Canadian viewing filter.

So I guess I’ll have to wait until “Men With Brooms: The Series” comes out on DVD. Then I can order it through Amazon.ca and watch it at my leisure.

Just the way I watch another Canadian sitcom, “Little Mosque on the Prairie.” Which is, by the way, a really fun show – which also isn’t available in the States.  Neither is “Corner Gas,” which I understand is quite funny as well.

Jeez.  We have a “BBC America” cable channel… is there a reason why we can’t have a “CBC America” channel as well?