Friday, September 12, 2008

Curling Politics


















There’s a federal election underway in Canada, and the reigning Conservatives are pulling out the stops in portraying Prime Minister Stephen Harper as an Average Guy.

Average Guys, of course, love curling, as the Tories have now pointed out. They have supported said pointout with this YouTube video (screen capture above) of the PM at the 2007 Tim Hortons Brier in Hamilton, an occasion which we mentioned, among with many others (see here, and here and here).

In fact, we’ve always been partial to the PM’s curling pedigree – wethinks our first Harper curling reference was this photo of him posing with the legendary Sam Richardson.

Even the congratulations templates released by the PMO ring true, at least compared to those issued by The Other Guys. For example, compare this congrats note sent to the 2008 world champion Kevin Martin squad to this rather poor effort.

PMO release good, Liberal release lame. Kind of like the overall scenario facing the voters, don’t you agree?

We’re voting blue... aren’t you?


Elsewhere:


• They’re on the ice in Spain today, for the sixth Madrid International Bonspiel. One team making its tournament debut is “Nagano 1998”, the reunited Olympic champions from Switzerland, skipped by Patrick Huerlimann, who will also take in the big football game (Real Madrid vs. Numancia) on Sunday. Among the other 39 teams listed are the “Broomer Penguins”, the “B-52”, team “Vicious and Delicious” and, inevitably, “Priapismus Shuffle” ...

• U.S. wheelchair curling skip Augusto Perez is the keynote speaker at Syracuse University tonight ...

• It’s official: Russ Howard has split with longtime teammate Grant Odishaw, and has reunited with Jimmy “The Kid” Grattan ...

• Vancouver’s Kent Gilchrist wrote this follow-up piece on the Brazil/USA challenge ...

• And finally, calling all Winnipeg female curlers: you are wanted for a TV shoot – the new CBC-TV dramedy Throwing Stones – this Monday, September 15 through Wednesday the 17th. You must have your own gear and be prepared for loooong days. Contact Kari Casting or check out this posting at CurlingZone ...

8 comments:

Unknown said...

> We’re voting blue... aren’t you?

Not in a million years, sorry.

TCN said...

No worries Marc... democracy speaks again.

Note: a couple of late links have been added to the posting...

Patrick said...

I respect anyone their voting choices, but I sure hope your choice of the Conservatives as a little more depth to it than the quality of curling related press releases.

The progressive side of the conservatives could have potentially earned my vote, but the rabid reform side will never it get.

Anonymous said...
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Alex said...

No, I won't be voting Tory this election, nor will I be subscribing to the Curling News. Using a curling blog to promote a particular political party is truly misguided and stupid...as stupid as a "Sparrow."

TCN said...

Alex:

There is plenty of curling info packed into this posting to at least satisfy any real curling fan that we continue to provide a service to the public.

And considering the TCN Blog is a free service to the public, your "misguided" and "stupid" choice of words happens to ring just plain nasty.

Some cheese with your whine?

Alex said...

As Pierre Trudeau almost said:

"There's no place for politics in the the curling magazines of the nation"

Alex

bestonline323 said...

Augusto Perez was the keynote speaker at Syracuse University it was really great.

This is a brilliant post!
Cheers,
Seth

P.S I agree with Marc Bernard, sorry.

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