Wayne, Yoni and Stephen Harper

Did you catch Wayne Middaugh on TSN’s Off The Record yesterday?

He swore he’d be up north snowmobiling for all 10 days of the Brier, but there he was, in TSN’s Toronto studio, babbling about the Brier, men’s versus women’s curling (hello!) and so on.

You can catch the show on the TSN broadband webpage, via the show link, but there’s more coming up. It’s Brier week on OTR as Mr. Hurry Hard, aka the Wounded Bull Moose (er, that would be Russ Howard) is on today’s afternoon show. Tomorrow, it’s the somewhat quieter (and other) Moose, aka Moosie, TSN commentator Ray Turnbull.

Big events like the Brier bring out all types. There’s really good journos, like the Globe’s Stephen Brunt, who when not crafting quality pieces like this is pretending – rather poorly, we might add – to know nothing about curling on The Bobcat’s incendiary FAN 590 radio/Sportsnet TV talk show.

There’s also misguided political miscreants who pipe up, like Yoni Goldstein did yesterday on the Nat Post’s blogsplotch. Curling Sucks? Now there’s a header designed to bring forth fire and brimstone. To hell with you, we humbly suggest.

Must be a Liberal. Canada’s curling-mad PM, Stephen Harper, is on his way to Copps as we type this. Maybe he can help Merk with the ice conditions.

Did anyone catch Danko? Let us know how The Mango Kid did on his debut curling night on Friday. Canada’s national music pub, incidentally, picked up our story from last week, even adding a mention of Hamilton’s legendary Dik Van Dykes and their Curling song. Awesome.

Elsewhere:

• DID YOU KNOW? ... that you could win a trip to the Ford Worlds? Get clicking ...

• DID YOU KNOW II? ... that Saskatchewan women’s alternate Sherry Linton wrote a daily dairy online during the Scotties? It’s still available, in all its glory, right here at Saskcurl. But just one question: what the heck is Flippycup?

• Finally, it’s official… a pipe band does indeed blare “louder than a jet engine”. And now we wonder if the Brier committee will perch a platoon of pipers way up in the Copps rafters for their closing ceremonies, amid growing spotlights, as they did in both 1991 and 1996? The soft part of our callow heart hopes they do, as those were quite the moments ...