Rocking the Vic

Harry is back home, the golf clubs are swinging, and there yet another musician front and center on The Curling News Blog.

Why, you may ask?

Simple... it turns out one of the best-kept west-coast-Canadian secrets in the world of music venues is in Victoria, BC... and specifically, the Victoria Curling Club.

Ever since one of our favourite bands – the Pixies – played VCC on their enormously successful 2004 reunion tour – this VCC concert photo shows lead singer Black Francis – we’ve noted more and more live shows booked for this curling club. After the ice goes out in April, of course.

But the legacy is much older... we found word of a Ben Harper show at the VCC dating back to May of 1997. That’s at least 10 years, folks.

Last Sunday saw a popular Finger Eleven gig – some clips can be seen on YouTube, but we’re not linking to them because, well, they suck – and this Saturday it’s another TCN fave, alt-rock heroes Metric. In July, there’s more in store with geezers, and bagpipe punks, a skafest, and so on and so forth.

The only time we’ve personally seen the club floor covered with something other than ice was during the 2005 Ford Worlds: the club became the Keith’s Patch and we could definitely see how it would also serve as a good live venue. Of course, that week the musical acts were the usual gang of cover bands we see at many Season of Champions events. The mighty Pixies, however... they’re simply at another level. Sigh.

Elsewhere:

• This Norwegian blog tells us that there were no spectator turnout for the recent Norwegian Mixed Championship. The local club president also wonders if its label as a “championship” scares away people, ie. players, who are more interested in having a good time – which is important to Norwegians at all times, naturally!

The last bit turns to some positives: that the event was played in the “western territories” – we assume Norwegian events aren’t typically hosted there – and while it’s sad that they still have to play in a hockey rink, says NCA general secretary Sverre Myran, a new rink will probably be built soon in Stavanger. Nice ...

• DID YOU KNOW: that former Mark Dacey third Bruce Lohnes has an award named after him? Truro Curling Club juniors Adam Berry and Megan Annand are the 2007 winners of the Bruce Lohnes Award (which was presented by Lohnes’ father Ted) to the Truro CC juniors curlers who demonstrate participation, co-operation and sportsmanship through the season ...

• Speaking of award winners, the inaugural recipients of Newfoundland’s “Team Gushue Scholarship Awards”, worth $5,000 each, were recently announced, among many others ...

• Meanwhile, Canadian Press has hopped on the story about Jamie Korab’s new team, and the result is something like thirty stories running all across the country, some with wild headlines like Curler fuels feud on rock (Edmonton Sun) and the Globe’s hysterical Hell hath no fury like a curler scorned.

Congratulations Jamie: you have to be the first front-end player to get more ink than over half the skips on the World Curling Tour! ...

• TCN honcho George Karrys tries to wrap up a wild season over at The Curling Show ...

• Word is that New York Rangers assistant coach Perry Pearn and curling ace Kevin Martin have both entered their alma mater’s fundraising golf tourney on June 1 at Edmonton’s Coloniale Club. The annual event attracts up to 120 players and sends proceeds to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology’s fund for athletic scholarships ...

• Looks like YouTube curling wizard sterlingwes got a boost from TCN Blog as his viewer numbers have jumped this week. If you haven’t started clicking on his collection of highlight-reel shots, we invite you to do so. Resistance is futile ...