Monday, April 21, 2008

TPC wrap, Gushue rumours
















Some decent on-ice action at last weekend’s Tylenol Players’ Championship, and many thanks to Dean Gemmell of The Curling Show for providing some on-the-blogspot observations. Make sure you check out TCS’ most recent interviews – from MVP Marc Kennedy and World Champion skip Jennifer Jones – and keep your eyes on that URL for more interviews to close out the newly-expired 2008 season.

Glenn Howard (Insight Sports photo by Anil Mungal) ended up stealing some of K-Mart’s April thunder by winning yesterday’s men’s title tilt, which now puts Howard directly into the 8-team 2009 Canadian Olympic Trials, alongside Martin.

Howard also won the last two Capital One Grand Slams of the season, while Martin took the first two. And, of course, there was that abysmal Brier final which really didn’t settle anything at all between these two giants, and which still leaves a sour taste today, a full month later.

The women’s final was intriguing, if not particularly well-played. Regina’s Amber Holland was the better skip on the day, and now has another year-plus to bring her teammates up to speed on the nuances of big-league curling. Runner-up Krista McCarville has won two of the last three Ontario championships, so she is clearly no slouch.

Al Cameron was the first to report that Brad Gushue is losing at least one player, and a key one at that. The rumour mill is is full swing and seems to center on Winnipeg’s Ryan Fry and, wait for it, former Gushue castoff Jamie Korab both joining (in Jamie’s case, re-joining) the squad.

Meanwhile, is anyone asking the Newfoundland & Labrador Curling Association why they would change the residency rules now? In other words, were they on the hunt for Schille’s scalp?

And one last Grand Slam thought – for now, anyway... how is it possible that CBC’s website didn’t run one official photo from any of the Grand Slams all season long? In other words, why did they run file photos from previous Olympic Trials (some as old as eight years ago) or from other non-Slam events to accompany all the Slam copy? Is anyone at CBC Sports or Insight Sports talking to their online partner? Just asking ...

Elsewhere:

• CurlTV wants your vote for Shot of the Year! Just head to this here page and click away, then cast your vote ...

• Here’s Donny Barcome’s thoughts on his hometown Worlds; and all of us at The Curling News wish Don and family the best as the family patriarch, Don “Doc” Barcome Sr., battles on ...

• It was Johnny U Day in Lac du Bonnet ...

• Finally, have you seen the video for Team Shattered Dreams? ’Tis a classic, we fear ...

No comments: