Tonight: Off The Record with skins skips

Some big-name curling champs – Kevin Martin, Randy Ferbey, Glenn Howard and Jennifer Jones – are headed to the 2009 Casino Rama Skins Game this weekend.

All four skips are now in Toronto and en route to TSN studios at the Rogers Centre for a taping of Off The Record, the sometimes-incendiary sports talk show with host Michael Landsberg.

The all-curling show airs tonight at 6:00pm eastern time.

It might be repeated overnight or tomorrow morning/afternoon, and it is sure to be available online tomorrow, as well – Canada only, we think?

Practice ice goes tomorrow in the casino entertainment centre and play begins Saturday with Martin versus Ferbey (1:00pm ET) and then Howard versus Jones (8:00pm ET). The final goes Sunday, at 1:00pm ET.

Many of you will remember our extensive 2007 event blog coverage, which told you about the ice, the ice temperature, the rock-star intros, the special-guest piper, the picks, the team from Newfoundland which perhaps woulda-coulda-shoulda been in the final, and much, much more.

(Search back to December 2007 in our blog archives for that much, much more)

Last year Off The Record – OTR – also hosted an all-curling Skins preview episode, and things got very interesting. Wayne Middaugh was on fire, first reminding Martin of his corn-broom incident at the 1991 Worlds and then stating, unequivocally, that “the Olympics have ruined curling.”

Wayner is always sure to be a hoot on that show.

Jill Officer, who plays second for Jones and who writes for The Curling News, was unimpressed enough to write a column in last year’s January issue asking Wayne just what the hell he meant by that.

Of course, if you subscribed to The Curling News, you will have read that story already. Hint, hint.

So what will tonight’s OTR reveal?

It should be fun with Martin and Ferbey in the same room. Maybe TSN will seat them side by side. Giggle.

Jones will get asked about competing against men, and Glenn will joke that while he’s a really nice guy he’s just going to have to kick Jen’s butt, because the skins format is too volatile to do anything but try and squash your opponent. No Mr. Nice Guy here.

Jones, as some have suggested, is like a lawyer in her interviews. Guarded, formulaic and cliched. Well, she is a lawyer, in fact. Host Landsberg, meanwhile, has been know to get under the skin of some guests, and he may feel he has to roll up his sleeves and do just that today. Anyone want to take that bet, Jones versus Landsberg? Who wins?

Finally, a word about tickets. Southern Ontarians are complaining that Ticketmaster won’t give them any options to buy, with the site listing the event tickets as “unavailable”. There are whispers that the event is “Sold Out”.

We have the scoop. And we’ll reveal it – along with the exclusive way to go and get what few tickets remain - later this afternoon. Stay tuned ...

PS: Landsberg will be going back to his roots, at Vancouver in 2010. He is part of the massive consortium lineup of TV anchors, hosts and reporters who will be very busy at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. This story also reveals the names of the curling TV talent: Vic Rauter, Bryan Mudryk, Linda Moore, Ray Turnbull, Russ Howard, Cathy Gauthier, Dan Murphy, Michel Y. Lacroix and Guy Hemmings ...

Save The Oshawa

The Oshawa Curling Club is in deep trouble, as this story and this chat thread both reveal.

Club president Rob Faulds, above in this TCN photo by Anil Mungal, is best known to blogreaders as the voice of Rogers Sportsnet curling coverage, which had its run from the fall of 1998 through spring 2006. And like other curling commentators before him – such as TSN’s Vic Rauter – we can see that Rob has become quite the curler himself. Enough to get involved at the grassroots level too, at his home club, which is additionally impressive.

Rob’s young son also curls.

Question: can the Greater Toronto Area, the financial H.Q. of Canada and host of one heckuva big tournament in 2009, really afford to lose yet another curling club? And one with eight sheets of ice, so soon after the appalling death of Avonlea?

Will the Toronto, Ontario and Canadian Curling Associations take any proactive measures?

Does anybody care?


More stuff for a Friday ...

• We couldn’t resist scouring the web for some vintage Faulds: here he is way back in 1988, on the baseball beat, in this funny piece called “Expos Dragnet” ...

• There’s a dearth of season wrap-up stories this year; but good old Jim Bender has one, located here ...

• Manitoba Curling Association chief Ian Staniloff is moving on after 12 years at the helm; stories here and here.

Obviously Staniloff’s last official gig will be to represent Manitoba at the Canadian Curling Association’s annual Congress, held early June in Ottawa. This will be CCA CEO Greg Stremlaw’s first Congress – hard to believe he’s only been on the job for eight months – and he is expected to reveal that a significent dent has been made in the CCA’s infamous $1.4-million deficit ...

• Sounds like Bob Cowan will be kept busy for a while as the stories behind the Scottish women’s Vernon debacle continue to twist and turn, and spring turns to summer ...

• The Bubbler recently declared the Green Bay Curling Club portal to be their “Site Of The Week” ...

• Here’s a look at Pittsburgh’s other ice sport in the news these days ...

• Word has it that Charley Thomas and his 2007 world junior championship squad of Brock Virtue, Matt Ng and Kyle Reynolds were recently named Alberta’s Team of the Year.

Presumably, this award celebrates 2007 achievements.

The Canadians routed Sweden 8-3 in eight ends last year in Eveleth, Minnesota to earn a second gold medal in two years. Thomas and Reynolds were also on the 2006 world championship team, along with Geoff Walker and Rollie Robinson, that captured gold in Korea ...

• RIP to a Cornwall curling legend ...

• And finally, our heart goes out to Ontario’s Dave “Hutch” Hutchison and his wife, who were victims of a recent burglary with a particularly sad twist.

Hutch is a true curling guy, who ran the Annandale “Eager Beaver” cashspiel (no laughing!) for years before joining the the Ontario Curling Association as an employee. He discovered the theft when he returned home from the OCA office.

Hopefully the press on this story will reach the ears of the thief, who will then choose to do the right thing.