Rockin' the Gold Curling

Rockin’ the Gold is a fundraising event to support the Canadian Curling Association’s ongoing quest to encourage and develop the sport across Canada.

Sounds good to us!

On July 17, participants will gather to compete and have fun at Toronto’s High Park Curling Club for the Rockin’ the Gold Bonspiel ($80 per team includes three indoor games, door prize ticket, plus dinner and drink) while guests/attendees can also drop by (at $10 a ticket) to enjoy the fun.

Waitaminute... did we say “indoor”?

Yep, we’re talking about the dryland version of the sport, “Kurling”, which is sweeping across Canada after originating in the U.K.

The “stones” are used in the Capital One Rocks & Rings program (you remember this story, and this one, right?)

This interesting day is organized by Sport and Event Marketing students from Toronto’s George Brown College, each of whom is a self-declared curling enthusiast.

Partners include the CCA (of course), George Brown College (of course), Wellington Brewery, Boston Pizza, Generation Go and Rock Solid Productions.

Sounds like there may be a couple of team spots available, so hustle on over to the website. You can also follow the action on Facebook (must be a member) and on Twitter.


What else?

• World wheelchair curling champion skip Jim Armstrong looked simply fabulous on Canada Day (see second photo, below the first)... but the serious news is that he has a shoulder injury that will require surgery. And thus brings the big question: does he go ahead with surgery now, or tough it out until after the 2010 Paralympics in March?

The story is here, with over 20 comments so far ...

• Still with wheelies and Vancouver, 2006 Paralympic champion skip Chris Daw is relocating, again, this time from Newfoundland all the way across Canada to the left coast. Daw has been hired as the new General Manager of the Vancouver Curling Club, which of course will be moving into its new digs just 100 yards away within a year or so following the Olympics and Paralympics.

Apparently, Daw will also be continuing his work for the CCA as the Development Coordinator for Wheelchair Curling (under the Discover Curling program).

This is all good news, considering Daw was tempted to leave the country just a few years ago.

Oh... Daw will also be a father, again... he and wife Morgan are expecting a child in early March, 2010. Congrats Chris, on numerous fronts!

• DID YOU KNOW: that venue construction for the Sochi 2014 Olympics is definitely underway?

• Wanna buy a curling book? You can get “Saskatchewan Curling: Heartland tradition 1882-1990” for 10 bucks ...

• And finally, welcome to a new curling blogger, who describes himself or herself as an Average U.S. Curler. No pressure now, having been linked by The Curling News Blog ... :)

Russia: on-ice action

NEWSFLASH: The Gushues defeat Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud 6-3 on Saturday afternoon, and move their win/loss record to 3-0.

Poor Ulsrud... the defending world bronze medallist is now 0-3, having lost his first two matches to Russian teams by scores of 7-3 and 5-4. Yikes.

In this game action photo, the photographer obviously stepped from the sideline right onto the ice behind Gushue third Mark Nichols! Will this be a new photojournalism rule for the 2014 Olympic curling event in Sochi?

More later...

WCT-E photo courtesy Armin Harder (click photo for zoom image)

Olympic Curling 2018

Curling fans are slowly going bonkers over the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games – don’t forget, tickets are on sale in early October – and of course we then have Sochi, Russia in 2014.

In fact, it was one year ago today that Sochi got the nod from the International Olympic Committee, shocking many observers (including us).

What comes next, in 2018?

Well, PyeongChang, South Korea is bidding again, having lost to both Vancouver and Sochi. In fact, it says here the Koreans will bid over and over and over until they win it. Simple as that.

Munich, Germany will be bidding, and despite the proximity of Sochi to Europe, the Germans are a major threat to win.

Tromso, Norway, is going to bid and 2002 Olympic curling champion skip Pal Trulsen has thrown his support behind the bid. They are first out of the hack with a website; a Facebook page, located here (you must be a Facebook member to view it)... and here’s a cool promotional video... love the big rings located on the mountain facing the main stadium!

And in a clear acknowledgment that a bid will go forward, there is even an official opposition group already online. But of course.

The Americans are interested, but if Chicago wins the race to host the 2014 Summer Games, any Yankee winter hopes – probably centered on Denver, Colorado – are gone.

Meanwhile, the Bulgarians and Serbians are reportedly combining on a joint bid; the French are infighting over bidding on summer or winter; the Swiss (in Geneva) need a referendum to proceed, the Swedes are exploring their options, and even some southern hemisphere locales (like New Zealand) are thinking about it. But not Durban, South Africa, as some had recently believed.

All formal bids are due in January, 2009.


Anything else?

• Once again, the glorious sport of curling was included in many a news outlet’s annual Canada Day Quiz... such as this one here. However, the answer featured a horrendous inaccuracy – can you spot it?

• It was, of course, Canada Day on July 1... and today, on this fourth of July, we say Happy Birthday to our American friends. There is, by the way, lots of curling action going on down south these days:

– Texas Dan recently celebrated 50 years of Frisco curling and also illustrates another 50-year anniversary, in Green Bay, Wisconsin – and you’re telling us curling is located right across the street from this iconic shrine? Are you kidding?!

– San Jose has not one but two open house days scheduled for next week, and at two different locations to boot;

– curling maniac Richard Maskel won a new summer spiel in Port Huron, Michigan... with extra photos located here. The photographer was Keith, by the way;

– New York’s Coach Heidt, a hockey and lacrosse buff, was recently intrigued with curling;

– there are curling stones rarin’ to be tossed at the new Chaparral Ice rink in Austin, Texas;

– how about Indianapolis? Yep, here’s the story (plus video);

– Team Debbie McCormick second Nicole Joraanstad – a 2007 calendar girl – was recently voted Madison Sportswoman of the Year for 2008;

– the Pittsburgh Tropical is going on, like, right now;

– and those loveable tinseltowners in Los Angeles are making news, again... first they were somehow part of a Dodger Stadium pre-game award presentation to pro baseball player Russell Martin; and now CurlTV has finally drawn a bead on them. Their latest funspiel goes tomorrow ...

• This silly hockey story caught our eye: specifically the reference to past disputes between Canada’s CBC-TV Sports and the world of curling. We simply love the line “... sparked hundreds of thousands of angry curling fans to threaten a march on CBC headquarters with lit brooms and pitchforks” ...

• Here’s an odd little curling cartoon, from Italy:

• Here’s a curling league software package for $79.95; someone tell us if it’s any good ...

• Peter dropped by Naseby, New Zealand, and checked out the only dedicated curling facility located in the southern hemisphere of planet Earth. Soon to come is a luge ride (just scroll down a bit) ...

• The Winnipeg Brier has raked in a half-million dollars in profit ...

• And finally, the Canadian Curling Association was in Prince George, site of the 2000 STOH, for a venue inspection for the 2009 Pre-Trials Qualifier. Story plus photo here, and video here ...

Bacardi: time to step up

RED ALERT: if you are on the organizing committee of a popular cashspiel and are considering an online entry system, be very aware of the snafus that have entangled athletes and organizers out in Brampton, Ontario.

It’s an ugly situation that will certainly be rectified in future, but will that future include this fall’s event? Time will tell.

By the way, the Bacardi is a fine tournament celebrating its 25th anniversary this fall. But... in the words of a recent champion, it has rarely dished out winnings much beyond what the entry fees bring in.

Think about that.

This leads one to ask: what exactly is it that Bacardi is giving to the event – or perhaps the club? – each year that deserves title sponsorship of this tournament?

It’s one thing to contribute small budget line items to the local market – Brampton is Bacardi’s home – but after 25 years, The Curling News says its high time that this world-class distiller stepped up to the plate and put more hard dollars into the prize purse.

Lots more stuff today, so get your fingers ready:

• The Asham World Curling Tour (AWCT) schedule has been released, and is available through the Tour website as a PDF download. Click away ...

• New Zealand is experiencing a nasty winter – barely a squall by Canadian standards – which means joy for curlers, as their outdoor “Grand Match” was able to run for the first time in six years. An ice layer of about 25cm on the Idaburn Dam was enough to support over 250 players and 500 stones. Here’s a preview story; here’s one report, with video, from NZ TV 3; and here’s not one but two more print tales.

Days earlier, the Baxter Cup was also battled for in an outdoor theatre, with 88 curlers taking part.

Those Kiwis are pumped!

• Atlantic Canadian curler Helen Robbins can hold her head high today; she has been awarded the Order of Prince Edward Island ...

• Ed Lukowich is in the hotseat on the latest episode of The Curling Show ...

• Curling coaches looking for a challenge might want to consider the largely desert nation of Turkmenistan, which plans to field its first Winter Olympic team at the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia.

“We will certainly take advantage of the Russian invitation to take part in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, for which it is necessary to begin the appropriate preparations already today,” President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov recently told the official newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan.

The president did not say in which events the Central Asian nation — an oil-rich ex-Soviet republic — might compete, but he has ordered his cabinet to draft proposals for participation in the Games.

Turkmenistan has not won an Olympic medal since becoming an independent nation after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. The last time an athlete from the nation won a medal was at the 1964 games when a Turkmen kayaker was part of the champion Soviet team.

Summertime temperatures in Turkmenistan, north of Iran, can reach 50 degrees Celsius (120 Fahrenheit), and snow is rare in winter.

Sochi, of course, defeated Pyeongchang and Salzburg in a recent IOC vote to host the 2014 Games ...

• Remember our online teaser about this new CBC-TV show, and the feature that followed in a print issue last season? It looks like the curling promo shot in Newmarket, Ontario earlier this year has been appended by new scenes shot in nearby Richmond Hill, will indeed become part of a show episode, according to this Toronto Star story; “We have an episode this season with Muslims trying curling, which demonstrates that we are all one, all Canadians,” says show producer Mary Darling ...

• AWCT followers will note a new spiel in the Alberta town of Brooks, namely the Cactus Pheasant Classic which debuts this November, and with a hefty prize purse of $70,000, which is enough to attract KMart, for starters ...

• Over in Ottawa, the Carleton Heights club is in the news, both good and bad. The latter comes from graffiti splashed onto the club over the weekend, which police are investigating. Good is the news that the club is exploring interest in a summer (September) league, so if you are interested, click here and follow up ...

• In Winnipeg, new signage is up which rebrands the Asham Arena, aka the Valour Road CC, as the new Thistle CC (confused yet?) which of course saw its original facility destroyed in a fire just over a year ago ...

• Saskatchewan’s greatest curling soap opera – concerning the long-proposed and debated Moose Jaw Multiplex – took another negative turn yesterday, with curling now apparently on the outside looking in ...

• Finally, we wonder what Chris Daw, featured here last week, would think of the comments posted on this wheelchair curling website (7/12/2007)? Probably not much, as Daw suffered a death in the family over the weekend, forcing him to leave that training camp in Edmonton ...

Sochi shocker

Indeed, the IOC delivered another eye-bulger yesterday by voting in the Russian city of Sochi as 2014 Olympic host. Read some of the punditry here.

The World Curling Federation has spoken, congratulating Sochi as such:

"Just as Russian curling surprised the world last December, Sochi has now surprised the Olympic world with this tremendous hosting victory," said WCF President Les Harrison.

"We look forward to showcasing the world's fastest-growing winter ice sport at its sixth official Olympic appearance in Sochi."

Last December, of course, Russia's national women's curling team, skipped by youthful Ludmila Privivkova of Moscow, shocked the field to win the 2006 Le Gruyere European Championships in Basel, Switzerland. Privivkova will lead her team into competition as a member of Team Europe at the 2007 Continental Cup, announced yesterday.

Sochi defeated Pyeongchang, South Korea and Salzburg, Austria in voting at an International Olympic Committee meeting in Guatemala yesterday.

Olympic curling in 2014 is expected to take place at a new national curling complex which will be constructed for the competition.

Olympic Curling: Decision 2014

The fourth of July is more than just an American holiday: it’s the day the world finds out the host city of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

The choices to follow Vancouver 2010 and host curling’s sixth official Olympiad are South Korea’s PyeongChang, the Austrian city of Salzburg in central Europe, and Russia’s Black Sea resort city of Sochi.

The vote takes place at International Olympic Committee meetings set to begin shortly in Guatemala, with July 4 the magic day of reckoning.

Pundits have recently put the Russians squarely in third place, with PyeongChang and Salzburg running one-two in the race to host. The Koreans should be the favourites, however, given that they very nearly scooped the 2010 Games from Vancouver at the last minute. Remember that?

Curling would take place in the nearby city of Gangneung, along with all other ice sports. The existing facility is already pegged to host the 2009 World Women’s Curling Championship, following next year’s 2008 Ford Women’s Worlds in Vernon, British Columbia.

Salzburg, which has a rich winter sport history, would put curling in the new (2004) Salzburg Arena, city centre, with some 5,000 seats.

Sochi would have to build a new facility, dubbed the Imeretinaskaya Exhibition Center, which would seat 3,000 and also serve as the new national curling centre. Sochi, by the way, is a truly odd place, serving as both a sea and ski resort. That’s right... snow on the tops of plam trees, people. Wouldn’t mind getting weird with that.

Who will win and who should win are often two very different concepts... particularly to IOC votemakers. Suffice to say that four years after Vancouver, curling’s big show will take place in a comparitively exotic locale.

Elsewhere:

• The Canadian Curling Association has announced the sites and dates for the 2008 Canadian Mixed and Seniors competitions: it’s the Calgary Curling Club for the Mixed on Nov. 10-16, and Prince Albert in Saskatchewan for the Canadian Seniors, taking place March 22-30 ...

• So where, pray tell, is the Brier on this otherwise engaging list of 101 Great Sporting Events One Must Visit Before One Dies? Nowhere to be found. Is this ignorance or purely a diss? We suspect the latter, given the inclusion of ridiculous things like #64, inspiring things like #60, very Canadian things like #59, and hatchet jobs like the one found at the end of #57 ...

• Here’s a well-done kid’s feature on curling, originating from PBS’ DragonflyTV ...

• Finally, a YouTube look at Houston’s recent Texas Open Bonspiel... hey, where’s Dan?