Men keep it simple

 by Margo Weber

EDMONTON – Okay, this is the situation for the dudes.

Tonight, Glenn Howard and Kevin Martin play for a spot in the final. Loser goes directly into the semifinal.

Jeff Stoughton (4-2) and both Kevin Koe and Randy Ferbey (3-3) are still in the mix.

However, if Stoughton beats Pat Simmons tonight, he is in the semi. Everyone else is out. If he loses, then he must play a tiebreaker against the winner of the Ferbey/Koe game.

See? The men keep it simple!

PS: The editor, gk, has asked me to remind you all about the TCN Twitter feed. I just checked it out myself and my gawd, there is so much extra curling stuff on there – including big news from the Euros over in Aberdeen, Scotland – that I think you could use the info to publish an extra edition of The Curling News every month.

So click here and check it out.

[CCA photo of Kevin Martin by Michael Burns]

Two in, six to go

And then there were 10.

The field for December’s Roar of the Rings grew by two teams yesterday as Winnipeg’s Jeff Stoughton and Calgary’s Crystal Webster (CCA photo above by Michael Burns) qualified for the Canadian Olympic Trials.

One more will be added by about 7:30pm ET tonight, when Kelowna’s Kelly Scott finishes her battle with Thunder Bay’s Krista McCarville in the women’s B-final. That game starts at 4:00pm ET (live on TSN).

Another will be added later tonight, when the men’s B-final takes place (starting at 9:30pm ET, again on TSN). That one will feature the winner of Edmonton's Ted Appelman versus Mike McEwen of Winnipeg facing off against the winner of Pat Simmons (Davidson, SK) and Wayne Middaugh (Toronto).

What else is happening?

Well, the TCN Twitterfeed is humming again, click here (and click on Follow) to see nine Tweets from earlier this morning...

2-0 at Olympic Pre-Trials

The action has been intense at the CN Centre in Prince George, with lots of late steals throwing the “Road to the Roar” pre-Trials race wide open.

Another example was yesterday’s show from 2007 world champion Kelly Scott. Her Kelowna team took two in the 10th end and then stole the extra frame to shock Cathy King of Edmonton by an 8-7 count.

Top seeds are falling left and right, and as a result you’ve got teams like Calgary’s Crystal Webster, Saskatchewan’s Sherry Anderson and Pat Simmons, Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen and Ottawa’s youthful Rachel Homan all sharing the lead at 2-0... and only two wins away from a berth in the Canadian Olympic Trials.

Other big names at 2-0 include Jeff Stoughton and Brad Gushue, the finalists from the 2005 Olympic Trials in Halifax.

Homan, the junior phenom we first profiled two years ago, is shown above in yesterday’s action (CCA photo by Michael Burns). In her second match, Homan gave a quick three-spot to Marie-France Larouche of Quebec but roared back to score a 7-4 win. She won her first one 8-6 over Quebec’s Eve Bélisle.

You can also see more Road to the Roar pics on The Curling News Facebook Group page – join the group!

Meanwhile, yesterday’s TCN Twitterfeed was belching smoke, as we posted 36 times, 17 of them retweets from CurlingZone’s excellent live game coverage.

Today’s Twitterroll so far includes:

• news from Wawa, Brighton, Guelph and Chatham, Ontario
• a former WCF prez is to unveil war memorial
• two Canadian Mixed preview spotlights
• viral video mixes hockey and curling (previous blogpost)
• a new Canadian athlete Twitter list has three curlers included
• a quickee look at pre-Trials co-leader Crystal Webster

And there is much, much more curling news to come throughout the day! Go to the TCN Twitter page and click on “Follow” at top right...

Olympic pre-Trials underway

And they’re off!

The practice rounds are finished, the new uniforms are in play (Team Brad Gushue photo by CCA’s Michael Burns, click to zoom in) and now, finally, the first stones are underway at the Road to the Roar, the official Canadian Olympic pre-Trials curling qualifier at the CN Centre in Prince George, B.C.

There is live scoring action on two fronts: at CurlingZone’s Gameday Scoreboard and also at the Canadian Curling Association’s CurlCast.

CurlTV.com is in the house, with their first match webstreamed live to subscribers (or pay-per-viewers) at 3:30pm ET today: Pat Simmons (SK) versus Jean-Michel Menard (QUE).

TSN roars into town on Thursday, with live action scheduled right through to Saturday’s C-finals.

For these and other curling TV coverage listings, we sincerely hope you are checking out The Curling News TV Guide in the November issue of The Curling News, which has been out for over two weeks now.

You are a subscriber, right?

The Curling News Blog and Twitter pages will be humming with action throughout the week: in fact, today’s Twitterfeed links to no less than eight preview stories, in addition to even more curling stuff.

You do follow us on Twitter, right?

Just checking.

The Road to the Roar: game on!