Curling in August

Guess what: curling is back.

It’s Game On in Edmonton as the Saville Centre (photo) is open for curling business. They’ve actually had ice since last weekend, and they’ll be tinkering through this week before opening it to the public on Saturday.

They’ve got Pre-Season Leagues, a combined golf/curling day called the Sticks & Stones Classic, a new series of kid’s clinics called the Summer Sliders Camps, and also Kevin Martin’s Academy of two camps, one for adults and one for juniors. All of these can be accessed from the Centre’s page on Summer Curling.

In another week or so, both Oakville and Guelph, in Ontario, will be open for thriving summer league and bonspiel play.

Yup, it’s that time again.

And we were just getting used to summer... weren’t we?

• The fallout over the loss of Toronto’s enormous Avonlea facility seems disconcerting: there is no word of a rescue plan, no intense political lobbying – and this is a municipal election year – and no committees being struck. There may be anger, but no action. Or so it seems. Anyone... ?
Meanwhile, the Toronto Star reports that its online story, located here, was the 10th highest story viewed and forwarded on Friday. Other media reports include the Toronto Sun, the National Post, and the local North York Mirror.

• On the high-performance team front, there is big news from Atlantic Canada. On the heels of their announced induction into the PEI Sports Hall of Fame (taking place September 2), Suzanne Gaudet’s 2001 world junior champion team has now decided to reunite for the 2006/07 season...

• Despite missing curling’s medal podium at Torino 2006, UK Sport has tripled curling’s annual sport funding to 1.1 million pounds, putting traditionally well-funded sports like alpine skiing to shame and raising some eyebrows...

• It looked like a typical U.S. journalist-goes-curling story. We suppose it is typical, in terms of having a familiar start (reporter is confident), middle (reporter is in disbelief, and some degree of pain) and ending (reporter has respect). But what a great piece of writing it turned out to be... and the fellow didn’t even comment on the difficulty of sweeping. Here it is, from Sweet Home Chicago...

• The all-Olympic lineups are now confirmed for the return of the Continental Cup of Curling, this coming November in Chilliwack, BC...

• Blogspots: Camper Dan is going wild, and he doesn’t even start Hot Shotting for another five weeks... incidentally, can anyone guess who Dan is admiring in this previous photo-posting? We know who it is... but then, we know everything, right?... and this guy seems, on first glance, to be a complete arse, but hey, this was Blogpost number 38 during a 24-hour Blogathon – for charity – so maybe we’ll cut him some slack. Just this once.