Olympic flame on curling ice

From the last post, to the big reveal.

2006 Olympic champion Mike Adam, alternate for Brad Gushue’s victorious foursome and the young man who committed one of “the most selfless acts in sport history” became the first Canadian high-performance curler to carry the Vancouver 2010 torch... and the first-ever human to slide with it down a sheet of curling ice.

The Katie Greene photo above shows Adam alongside former Team Gushue Olympic coach and 1976 Brier champion, Toby MacDonald.

“It was awesome,” Adam told The Curling News.

“In spite of it being Friday the 13th I didn’t wipe out... and I didn’t set the club on fire, either.”

Adam was on the ice at the St. John’s Curling Club in Newfoundland and Labrador, the traditional home base of Team Gushue and many of the island’s top competitors, and accepted the torch from the previous bearer, 2007 Canadian junior champion curling skip Stacie Devereaux.

Adam then proceeded to slide halfway down the sheet of ice. Then, he did it again... nice and slowly, for the assembled media.

“I was thinking, if I slide past real fast to get to the other end, I’ll blow by the people that are lined up to see it, and they don't get a chance to see it that well,” said Adam.

“So I figured I’d go slowly, and give everyone the real gist of it, show the symbolism.”

Adam enjoyed the technical term VANOC organizers gave to this particular segment of the torch’s unprecedented 45,000 km journey, which will visit 1,000 Canadian communities.

“They call it an ‘Alternative Mode of Transportation,’” Adam chuckled.

Adam was one of 160 torchbearers who carried the flame more than 110 kilometres across Newfoundland on Friday.

On a day when his Olympic teammates with Team Gushue were officially eliminated in the race to defend their championship in Vancouver, thousands of miles away in Prince George, British Columbia, Adam spoke poignantly about his return to the club.

“It’s been almost a year and a half since I’ve been back here,” said Adam, who now lives in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia.

“It would have been great to have everybody back here for this, but the boys had to be out west.

“I give the organizers full marks for including curling, and our team, in this amazing journey.”

There’s more from Adam and his big Friday in today’s edition of the St. John’s Telegram.

Later today, Alberta front-end curling legend Don Bartlett runs with the torch, in his original hometown of Gander, Newfoundland.

Other Olympic curlers slated to carry the torch are Russ Howard (Moncton, Nov. 29), Don Walchuk (Moose Jaw, Sask. on Jan. 10), alternate Ken Tralnberg (Hague, Sask. on Jan. 11), Marcie Gudereit (Lloydminster, Sask. on Jan. 12), alternate Sandra Jenkins (Salmon Arm, B.C. on Jan. 27) and Georgina Wheatcroft, who will bear the flame at Whistler Olympic Park on Feb. 5.

The full list of 300 Canadian Olympians who will act as torch bearers can be seen here.

Insane curling week

There is so much going on, we almost don’t know where to begin. Prepare yourself for a dizzying ride... and you might want to bookmark this page!

We’ll start in British Columbia, host to two big events starting tomorrow.

First, the doors to the gigantic new 2010 Olympic and Paralympic curling venue – impressively labelled the Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic Centre – were thrown open to the public yesterday. Following the ceremonial first stone (photo by Metro) there was a full slate of activities running from 5:00pm to 8:00pm, such as curling demonstrations – featuring 2002 Olympian Georgina Wheatcroft (who seems to have been hanging around all week) and emcee Ray Turnbull of TSN – plus a multicultural assortment of performers, including dancers, bagpipers, a hip-hop crew, stilt-dancers (!) and a South Asian bhangra team.

Plus free munchies, free pins from Canadian Olympic broadcaster CTV, Olympian and Paralympian autograph sessions, inukshuk-building and of course the official Vancouver 2010 mascots – Quatchi, Miga, and Sumi.

You can see pics and stories via Canwest, and the Globe (with the bazillion-dollar cost breakdown) while this Canadian Press squib mentions disappointment in the seating, saying “Canada's love for curling could easily have filled more than 6,000 seats.” We agree.

Dubbed “The Centre of it All” for last night’s bash, the facility will also boast an impressive post-Games legacy – a brand-new, eight-sheet Vancouver Curling Club, an NHL-size ice rink, a 6,200-square-metre aquatic centre (with a 50-metre lap pool, leisure pool, outdoor pool and hot tub), a 9,300-square-metre community centre complete with full-size gym, multi-purpose rooms and fitness centre, a library, field house and offices.

The best link, however, is this one from the World Curling Federation, because it previews the 2009 World Wheelchair Curling Championship, which starts tomorrow.

Canada’s six-time Brier competitor Jim Armstrong – who hails from Vancouver – now skips the national team, and he leads the hometown heroes against mighty Norway (two-time defending champion), Korea (whose 2008 silver-winning skip actually yells at the rocks, believing they will listen), Germany (winners of the Challenge qualifier back in November), China (it’s their first appearance, and they have an average age of just 24), Scotland (their skipper won two worlds and Paralympic silver in 2006) and the United States (winners of 2008 bronze).

As the WCF story points out, no less than four websites will be dishing results, shot-by-shot graphics, news and photos, so be sure to stay plugged in over the next nine days.

The International Paralympic Committee also has a preview here.

But that’s not all, for B.C.

The Scotties Tournament of Hearts also starts up Saturday, from nearby Victoria, with wall-to-wall TV coverage on The Sports Network... and live scoring at the event website... lots of media and predictions... and maybe even some occasional blogging from The Curling News, who knows?

Also, the U.S. Olympic Team Trials start tomorrow in Colorado. This is a combined championship, which will send the winning teams to the women’s worlds in Gangneung and the Ford World Men’s in Moncton... and also to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games next year. So for the Yanks, this it... right here and right now, baby.

Even USA Today has taken notice, with this feature on the wide generation gap on Team Erika Brown also including a link to “Relive the curling action from the 2006 Games”. Nice.

There’s more U.S. Trials media here (Duluth-based story and video) and here (featuring Wisconsin’s Debbie McCormick)... and even from this guy, who wrote a decent piece except for the not-too-thinly-veiled opening shots.

And did you know you can the playoffs live online, via Universal Sports?

Wait, there’s more.

As you saw in our previous post, we have spies on the ground at the Winter Universiade in Harbin, China, and we’re looking forward to more bird’s-eye viewpoints coming from the other side of the globe.

And now back to Vancouver for a second. The aforementioned VCC is hosting a Mixed Doubles bonspiel tomorrow... and this reminds us that this year’s 2009 World Mixed Doubles
are in gorgeous Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy, which of course will be hosting the 2010 World Men’s. So there you go.

And what about events that are ending this weekend? Geez, where do we start?

• Manitoba men’s provincial: live scoring located here, some Shaw TV game coverage via webstreaming here and some recent media here ...

• The Scottish men (scoring here) and women (scoring here) are almost into playoffs, with expert commentary located here ...

• The European Youth Olympic Festival (say what?) going on in Poland (say what again?) is into curling’s gold medal games... today! Scoring here!

• The Swiss men and women have their championship finals on Saturday... but to be perfectly honest, we can’t seem to find the link anymore.

And with that, our brains are fried. Pfffttt.