VANCOUVER – As teams and officials struggle to escape snowed-in Chilliwack, TCN is warm and snug at a hotel minutes from the airport, and bound shortly for the Centre of the Universe.It was the European curling universe which delivered a sound thrashing to Team North America at the Continental Cup, clearly viewable on CBC the final two days and, of course, on CurlTV every day, every draw since last Thursday.
For a quick study of the themes of the event, scroll down to the previous post and check out a barrage of exchanges between TCN and TCS (The Curling Show), which you can find under "COMMENTS".
You'd be wise to also check out the upcoming December issue of TCN, which will feature a report and op-ed from ace columnist Larry Wood. Why not subscribe today? You can only read it in the hard copy of The Curling News.
Line of the day: from WCF past president Roy Sinclair of Scotland, as quoted by Paul Wiecek in today's Winnipeg Free Press:
A guy slides down a hill on his back, and they call that luge. But if he slides down on his belly, well, that's skeleton. If those are two separate sports, then don't tell me mixed doubles curling isn't a sport.
The IOC will be voting on whether to include Mixed Doubles, which played to strong reviews in Chilliwack, at the end of the month.
Stay tuned ...
Sinclair's quote about luge/skeleton is brilliant. He could, however, go even further with the luge comparison.
ReplyDelete"A guy slides down a hill on his back, and they call that luge. The same guy slides down a hill on his back with some other guy lying on top of him, and they call that two-man luge. If those are two separate sports..."
Two-man luge as a separate sport might be even more ridiculous than skeleton.
-- Dean Gemmell
Mike,
ReplyDeleteI agree that the CC was a bit of a snoozer but the mixed doubles is something that the players tend to review positively. I personally like it a lot more than singles — that bores me to death.
I think the format for the CC needs work and that it would be better to steal a page from the Ryder Cup — have a lot of games going on at the very end with a lot points at stake versus just two games for a bunch of points. I'd rather see the curlers actually curling instead of cheering.
And let's be blunt about the location. I'm sure the people of Chilliwack are great and worked very hard but I think it's now proven that you're not going to get big crowds to a curling event in B.C. Maybe Kelowna or Vernon can work but it's time for people to forget about Chilliwack, Kamloops, etc. It's depressing to watch an event with so many empty seats.
-- Dean Gemmell