New player for Gushue?

Alberta continues to dominate the curling headlines early in this off-season.

Take Olympic gold medallist skip Brad Gushue (far right in photo, along with golden teammates). He's in Vancouver today, helping to kick off the arrival of the RBC 2010 Flag Tour, a big family-oriented fun station which has been travelling the nation over the last couple of months. The Tour pumps up Vancouver through this weekend.

Okay... so what does a Newfoundlander (and Labradorian) hanging out on the Left Coast have to do with Alberta?

Turns out there are rumours of a new player on Team Gushue next season... and in a turn from the ordinary, this player would be leaving the land of black gold for the far east, not importing into it. The player is reported to be Chris Schille, a young'un with a colourful Alberta resume, who some feel would mesh well with the Gushues.

If true, this means ancient mariner and Monctonian Russ Howard will not be trying to pull a residency move to play full-time with the squad; he would no doubt make some special tournament appearances with them, but overall would return to New Brunswick to skip his own team.

Still with Alberta: former Ontario skip Mike Harris is en route – literally – to his new gig in Banff, where lo and behold, city council just happens to be mulling over a new $38 million sports and recreation complex, complete with six sheets of curling ice... sounds like there's trouble in Falher... and, not to forget Canada's other Olympic curling team, skip Shannon Kleibrink and third Amy Nixon will take up softball this weekend, accompanied by many Calgary sports heroes and all for a great cause.