Curling House

Anyone catch curling on the hit FOX TV show House the other night?

The irascible doc, portrayed by British actor Hugh Laurie (photo) was shown asleep on his couch with the sport blaring on the television in front of him, until a phone call woke him up. And that’s it.

Hmm... what are the writers, or the FOX network, trying to say?

Well, we’ve got news for you guys... 24 has jumped the shark, big time. So there!

Elsewhere...

• The Canadian Curling Association, currently weathering heavy fire from the online community (as usual) has put out an official RFP – Request For Proposals – to find a search firm, in order to find their new Chief Executive Officer. Current CEO Dave Parkes will, as previously announced, retire at year’s end.

The RFP has a due date of May 10, with proposals to be sent to CCA board member Graham Prouse of Alberta ...

• So... didja think curling was over? Think again. The Ontario Junior Curling Tour Championships start tomorrow in Sudbury – site of last weekend’s Heart to Heart charity shindig – with 24 teams (12 junior men’s and 12 junior women’s) doing battle. Ottawa’s Rachel Homan is the clear favourite on the gal’s side ...

• The Esquimalt Curling Club has been saved, for now ...

• Remember Jason Young’s The Curling Stones? He’s showing in Houston right now, through the bulk of May ...

• Brad Gushue is in T.O. today – in and out on the same day, what an itinerary! – for a VANOC sponsor announcement ...

• Let’s catch up on some old team news links: Al Cameron was actually the first to break the news of Colleen Jones’ new team, not CurlTV ... here’s local Halifax writer Jody Jewers and his take on the new Team CJones, while crosstown rival Monty Mosher was the first to label them Canada’s first coast-to-coast curling team... but is he correct? ...

• Meanwhile, did Jim Bender’s final wrapup column really label Wayne Middaugh an “enemy team” ...?

• Here’s an odd one... a promising baseball athlete gets cut, and switches to – of all things – pole vault and curling...

• This here summer vs winter-sport funding story has an interesting thought from Canadian Olympic hero Roger Jackson. Namely, that Canada needs Olympic gold (x2) from both their 2010 curling teams to have a hope of making the host nation’s overall team goal. Canada has, we must note, never won double gold at the Olympic Games.

“Winter sports have been underfunded in the past,” says Jackson.

“We’ve had some winter sports in Canada with no international athletes. The overall depth is weak. We have depth in hockey, curling and speedskating and we need two golds in hockey, two golds in curling and medals across the board in speedskating if our goals in Vancouver are to be met in 2010. Those three sports could account for two-thirds of our medals in Vancouver. The one sport in this country that has the attitude of it's ‘Gold or Go Home’ is hockey. We need to get that (attitude) in other sports.”

Note to Roger – we humbly suggest that curling (at least the Olympic version) also has that attitude. Just look at the near-vitriolic criticism heaped on virtually all Canada’s Olympic curling teams save for the only golden pair – Gushue and Schmirler – from both the media and the public ...