Scottish Brits win Ontario Tour title

OAKVILLE, Ontario – Greg Balsdon’s 7-5 victory in the final over Rob Lobel signified a solid 2009 men’s Ontario Curling Tour Championship.

Both Greater-Toronto-Area (GTA) teams are provincial contenders, and semifinalist Wayne Middaugh is no slouch, either.

Middaugh, incidentally, lost to the Lobels – again – as has often been their head-to-head result over the past decade or so.

However, when Eve Muirhead bushwhacked Brantford’s Jo-Ann Rizzo 8-0 in just four ends to capture the women’s title (above photo by Anil Mungal), everything had seemed a bit... odd.

Not the fact that Muirhead’s highly skilled squad won the event, going 7-0 throughout the week. Just the fact that Muirhead represents the Great Britain Olympic team, who all happen to be Scottish, and who are now jetting home across the Atlantic ocean, about as far as away from Ontario, Canada as one could expect.

“We played very solid as a team,” said Muirhead, who was supported by 2002 world champion skip Jackie Lockhart, 2007 world bronze-medal skip Kelly Wood and veteran Wood front-ender Lorna Vevers.

“(Rizzo) missed a draw in the second end and that was our steal,” said the three-time world junior champion Muirhead, who nabbed four points after scoring two in the opening frame.

“We didn’t really miss a shot after that, I don’t think.”

Muirhead said she loves to come to Canada “to get in spiels like this, the opponents are quite good.

“And we’ll be back in a few months to come.”

The Olympians-to-be, who captured $5,000 for the victory, will compete in an exhibition series during the men’s Capital One Grand Slam of Curling event in Mississauga, to be followed by women’s tour events in Red Deer, Alberta and Saskatoon.

Rizzo, who earned $2,500, was as supported by U.S. skip Patti Lank (who replaced calendar girl Chrissy Cadorin), Lee Merklinger and Leigh Armstrong.

Rizzo went 3-1 in her pool before defeating Quebec’s Eve Belisle 8-3 in the quarterfinals and Thornhill’s Colleen Madonia 5-3 in the semifinal.

Muirhead had a cracker of a match in her semi, edging Hamilton’s youthful Brittney O’Neil by a 5-4 count.

On the men’s side, Balsdon earned $6,000 for the win while Lobel was consoled with $3,000.

Other men’s playoff contenders included Middaugh, Sarnia’s Jason Young, Guelph’s Rob Rumfeldt, Harriston’s Jake Higgs and Trevor Feil of Elora.

Olympic curling season

And just like that, the 2010 Olympic curling season has begun.

After a busy summer, which saw various camps held in Ontario, Atlantic Canada, British Columbia, and Prague and Fuessen in Europe – plus the requisite summer bonspiel circuit – the ice is in and we’re underway.

The first event on the rebranded Curling Champions Tour – the former World Curling Tour Europe – is underway in Baden, Switzerland. And we can see by the Urs Raeber photo, above, that Olympic-bound Thomas Ulsrud of Norway (in white and red) has some spiffy new uniforms, while opponent Claudio Pescia of Switzerland is still wearing his four-year old green kit. Click to zoom in!

Actually, we love green, and we assume Team Pescia does too. However, the Norwegians pummelled the Swiss 10-3 to start the new Euroseason.

In other matches of note, Canada’s Brad Gushue defeated Switzerland’s Ralph Stoeckli 3-2, while Canada’s Mark Dacey was dumped 6-2 by the defending world champions from Scotland, skipped by David Murdoch.

Canada’s Randy Ferbey takes to the ice in a few minutes, against Switzerland’s Manuel Ruch.

Follow the Baden Masters 2009 results here, and be sure to check out The Curling News Facebook group for more action photos!

Why not join the group? It’s free, with a Facebook account.

In Canada, the Ontario Curling Tour Championships are also underway in Oakville, featuring both men’s and women’s draws, the latter including the Great Britain Olympic team. Eve Muirhead’s troops took out local Lynne Middaugh by an 8-3 score last night.

Another early result of interest saw Alison Goring’s brand new squad upend last year’s provincial finalists – ie. her ex-teammates, now led by Cathy Auld – by a 5-4 count. A fun bit of drawmastering from OCT chief Gerry Geurts, we surmise.

On the men’s side, four teams are 2-0 – including Joe Frans and the Lobel brothers – with Wayne Middaugh set to begin play this morning.

Game on, folks!

Scots aim for Olympic splash

You’re the world champion. You’re expected to get a medal.

This was one of the first questions directed to Vancouver 2010 golden hopeful David Murdoch, during his recent radio interview with BBC Radio 5.

We note that this wasn’t really a question. But “Muddy” handled it with his typical media smoothness.

The interview highlights his team’s training schedule, and Murdoch makes particular mention of his appearance at the Capital One Grand Slam at Mississauga (Toronto) in October.

The two-time world champion also points to his summer training, in which both the men’s and women’s UK Olympic teams cross-trained at a camp in Cyprus.

Sure, the weather was lovely... but the training was somewhat rocky, as this video of the women’s team shows.

The Murdoch interview is posted here.

NOTE: the GB women, skipped by Eve Muirhead, are in Canada far earlier than the men... this week, in fact. They start Thursday at the Ontario Curling Tour Championships in Oakville, with a match against Lynne Middaugh of Orillia.

Curling picks in China

by Paul Webster

HARBIN, China – Sometimes this game of curling is absolutely crazy and can keep you on the edge of your seat.

I was witness to a back-and-forth Winter Universiade curling game tonight between Great Britain and our Canadian Men’s team and let me tell you, that is three hours of my life I may never get back! Our boys came out of the gates playing well but definitely struggling with the ice a bit... luckily for us, the Great Britain squad under skip John Hamilton struggled a touch more, and we found ourselves with a 6-1 lead after five ends.

What I find nice about a lead like that is that you can play quite conservatively and usually make the other team put the pressure on themselves. Usually. I will not go into details... however I will let you in on the fact that we won in an extra-end!

The story of the game was some curious ice on Sheet A and what has to be a record number of picks. I go back to my previous blogpost, referencing the lack of control that the ice crew has over this, and the lack of importance this seems to have in the eyes of the organizing committee.

It is hard to control... however, a vacuum right before the draw would make a lot of sense. Sheet A, where we played, hosts the main entrance into the rink, and has been witness to three or four up-and-down games so far. We thought we were ready for it... however, we had a number of rocks pick even while cleaning the path!

Check out the photo of a gripper from the side of one of the sheets – no wonder the ice technicians ask players to ensure their equipment is clean! Come on guys, this is a global curling competition!

See my blogpost at curling.ca where I jump into this topic a little more.

Luckily we pulled out the win and sit with a 3-1 record, tied for second. Sweden and China continue to dominate the competition and are both undefeated. Canada faces a tough day tomorrow with Korea and Switzerland, with the Koreans at 3-1 and the Swiss at 2-2. The battle for top spot will take place tomorrow morning between Sweden and China. You can bet that the team that wins this game will be the number one squad at the end of the week.

We enjoyed the morning off and I believe our boys are on a regular sleep schedule. We had planned to go to Pizza Hut after the game today and we had an amazing meal. It’s funny how hot, fresh food makes you smile after spending the last five days going to the Twilight Zone Dining Hall... same stuff, practically, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

But the really unfortunate part of it is that the Twilight food has been sitting there for a while and can be cold when you go to bite into it. Mmmm, yummy!