Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The Hunt Is On

... for the elusive red heart, the symbol of superiority in Canadian women's provincial curling. The big stop on the road to the national championship.

Team Canada is Kelly Scott; PEI is Suzanne Gaudet; and here's a linkfest for the other provincial championships up for grabs right now, with most ending this weekend:

British Columbia
Alberta
Saskatchewan (er, next weekend, actually)
Manitoba , with daily coverage from both the Winnipeg Sun and Free Press
Ontario, with daily coverage from both the Toronto Star and Sun
Quebec
New Brunswick
Nova Scotia, with a preview here ...
Newfoundland
– The Territories: anyone? Bueller?

Elsewhere ...

• Canada’s youthful men’s team will meet the USA Thursday in one semi-final at the 2007 Winter Universiade, while Great Britain meets China in the other. On the women’s side, Canada lost their last three games but still made it into the playoffs, and will face Sweden in the semis. Defending champions Russia are into the other semi, and are awaiting the winner of an Italy/Japan tiebreaker.

Lots of press on the event – even from China – and what about Blogs? Lots of them in action from Italy: here’s the Canadian girls; Canada’s coach, the CCA’s Paul Webster; and even an excited local guy ...

• Speaking of Pinerolo, here’s an Italian computer curling game, inspired by Torino 2006; you can throw some wild-looking in-turns with this one ...

• DID YOU KNOW? ... that the second Grand Slam of the season, The BDO Classic Canadian Open, is underway today at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg? Don’t forget the nifty hotel and ticket package offered by the Winnipeg Fairmont, mentioned earlier this week ...

• Canadians in New Yawk City: you're wanted for a bonspiel this coming Jan. 28 ...

• No, of course it’s not ...

• Jennifer Jones and the Asham WCT’s Players’ Championship got some ink in this newser about funding cash coming down the pipe from Canadian Olympic sponsor HBC ...

• DID YOU KNOW II ... That the media liked the scoop revealed by The Curling News, right here on Friday, regarding the new Asham 8-Ender Award, which will hand out an $8,000 cash prize to one of 145 worldwide teams that scored an 8-ender last season? Tune in to CBC for the BDO final on Sunday, where they will announce the winning team ...

• U.S. skip Patti Lank will compete with her 15-year-old daughter in Japan next month. Canada’s entries, incidentally, are B.C.’s T.J. Peropolkin and Ontario’s Jo-Ann Rizzo, who will depart the day after the Ontario Scotties ends ...

• Former Canadian (and world) Seniors champ Bob Turcotte is back in the show, but unfortunately multiple Ontario women’s champ Anne Dunn couldn’t try to defend her 2006 title: this year’s World Seniors in Edmonton clash with the Canadian nationals ...

5 comments:

TCN said...

Not sure if last year's 145 is typical or not; we are currently looking into our 50 years of archives for some info.

Check out upcoming print issues – as well as this blog – for more interesting stuff on eight-enders!

curlingtorino said...

>an excited local guy?

Why?
Our analysis always concerned technical aspects more than appearance of (female) athletes engaged in the last Winter Universiade. We talked almost exclusively italian girls because they are the european vice-champions. ;)

TCN said...

Yes, we declared you to be "excited" over the sport of curling, not the fact you were speaking of a women's team. :)

Personally, we find it "exciting" to see Italians build websites and talking about curling. It will be great fun to watch Italian curling continue to grow in the future.

Here's a recent "blog"-style comment from Gaspari's national team coach, who is also a European correspondent for The Curling News:

"I did not stay to see the finals, instead I decided to visit one of my favorite wine producers in Piemonte on the way home. This to get me through the depression of losing by
inches in the last women's tiebreaker... after we beat China and ruled Japan
for most of the last tiebreaker, but didn't close them out when we had the chances in the seventh and eighth ends. Ahhhh."

curlingtorino said...

>Personally, we find it "exciting" to see Italians build websites and talking about curling. It will be great fun to watch Italian curling continue to grow in the future.

We enjoy too, a new era for Curling is beginning in Italy. Thanks for the visibility that you granted to our site. Keep in mind it's a 1.0 rel, improvements are arriving, stay tuned. :D

curlingtorino said...

PS sooner or later, our site will be also in English, we hope...