Euro Mixed 2009

The European Mixed Curling Championship 2009 is nearing its climax in beautiful Prague, Czech Republic.

Some four years old now, the event is the second-largest competition on the ECF (European Curling Federation) calendar, after December’s men’s and women’s Le Gruyère European Championships.

After nearly a week of competition, the host nation has made it through one tiebreaker (beating Russia) and faces defending champions Germany in a bid to battle Scotland in Saturday’s semifinals.

The other semi will see England face off against Denmark. The Danes won the title two years ago.

Countries from the United Kingdom seem to do well in traditional Mixed discipline. Last year’s champions hailed from... Wales!

The website is a typical example of Czech enthusiasm for curling. Attractive in design and functionality, it includes some wonderfully atypical photographs, above and here and here (courtesy of Mr. Volfik) as well as a daily video for your enjoyment (courtesy of Josef Podrabsky).

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!

Skip Cottage Curling

A new curling blog to promote, today, out of Scotland.

Skip Cottage Curling is the newest voice of Bob Cowan, the recently retired editor of The Scottish Curler magazine (and blog). Bookmark it now, please.

“As an ‘independent voice’ for Scottish curling, who knows how it will develop,” Bob told The Curling News.

Bob is already an active blogger, with a regular Skip Cottage offering and a Curling History title. As always, we look forward to his musings on The Roaring Game.

Today’s news that former Scottish champion skip Gail Munro has indeed launched legal action against national team coach Derek Brown for defamation is sure to provoke some comment. At some point. Er, maybe.

There’s already been mountains written about the ongoing saga – like this, and this, and this – and to be frank, at this point, we find it all a bit depressing.

And we’re not even Scottish!

Denmark curling history

VANCOUVER – The unprecedented continued at the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic curling venue as Denmark’s men, skipped by Rasmus Stjerne (far left in photo) overturned a previous playoff thrashing from Canada to deliver a smackdown of their own to the hosts in the gold medal match.

This gives Denmark its first world title in men’s play – ever. And that includes adult men’s competition, too.

The WCF writeup also tells the story of Stjerne’s victory drawing... no, not the one on the ice, but the one with pen and paper. Check it out.

Here are the history makers. WCF photo by Andrew Klaver.

Lyndon Little has the view from Canada here, and they’re already celebrating the women’s gold in Scotland ...

Scottish curling history in Vancouver

VANCOUVER – Scotland’s Eve Muirhead and lead Sarah McIntyre (can’t forget the front-enders, right?) have made history here at the new Vancouver Olympic Centre by winning their third consecutive World Junior Championship in a very well-played, see-saw 8-6 win over Canada’s Kaitlyn Lawes.

Story here.

In the above World Curling Federation photo by Andrew Klaver, Canadian third Jenna Loder directs the line with Scotland’s Muirhead (right) and Anna Sloan in the background.

World Junior men’s final now underway: Canada’s smooth Brett Gallant and Denmark’s fiesty Rasmus Stjerne are battling in the fifth end, with the Danes stealing the fourth end for a 3-2 lead.

See the end of the WCF story for links to the live scoring, which creaked and groaned during the women’s final due to overwhelming demand...

All hail our Curling History

Today’s blogpost is aimed at delivering well-earned congratulations and thanks to... another blog site.

Two sites, actually.

Many readers know that Curling Today is the official blog of The Scottish Curler, a wonderful curling news publication which happens to be older than dirt... just like ours!

As such, many readers should already be aware that a new companion blog has been launched, Curling History. This one is a partnership between SC honcho Bob Cowan and reknowned curling historian Sheriff David B. Smith.

The new blog has a sharp focus on all things faded and blurry: namely, the ancient history of our Roaring Game. And as readers are aware of our recent 50th anniversary and the celebration of all things, er, older than dirt... readers can be assured that we are quite interested in this new blog. And we invite you to get interested, too.

Our three favourite postings thus far, in reverse order, are:

3. How many have drowned? – why have we never heard stories of outdoor curlers crashing through the ice, nor seen photos nor drawings of such disasters? Well, now we have them!

2. Kerr’s History of Curling online - serious kudos to Bob on this one: we spotted the Electric Scotland curling initiative back in mid-May but neglected to run the story. And now the tale has been told in such better fashion! All we shall add are these quotes from Electric Scotland founder Alastair McIntyre:

Since publishing the first chapter, the webmaster of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club sent me a link to the History of the Strathcona Cup, which I’d added to the page. As he personally played in the last Scotland vs. Canada match, in Canada, I’m hoping he’ll do me a wee article about it and send in some pictures from it.

I would thus be happy to publish the first edition of Canadian Curling News if you would supply a copy!

Finally, as it happens I have had on my site for some time a wee curling game, which I commissioned back in Scotland. It goes nicely with a similar Caber Toss game!

Thanks, and well done, Alastair. And as we at TCN are well-known curling videophiles, here’s the link to the game.

And finally, our favourite:

1. Silver Broom, Perth, 1975 – ah yes, long-hidden colour photos of a magnificent event, now unearthed in the digital age. This is what it’s all about, folks. And Bob was there, of course, snapping the images of a previous, and glorious, curling era.

We have appropriated one of his pics for our story photo, above, as it shows a skillful western-Canadian-style tuck delivery in action, a delivery that was to become even more famous in the 1980s. Any guesses as to who this is, people?


Elsewhere:

• Famed front-ender Scott Pfeifer has a fractured fifth metatarsal in his sliding foot, and is now armed – er, legged – with a cast and crutches. Seems the second man for Team Randy Ferbey rolled his ankle in a workout on Monday, but aims to be back on the ice for late September ...

• Did you happen to spot the comment after our previous posting? Andrew T from the CCC reports that his group of curling diehards are abandoning the hockey arena and will move into a leased warehouse, and make their own ice in the facility. A huge undertaking indeed, and we certainly wish our Columbus friends all the best ...

• Need your summer curling fix? Here’s the final rocks of the Tropicurl in Pittsburgh, at which the Tam Heather skip made this nifty draw to force a tough last brick from his U.S. opponent, who missed the mark. But our favourite is this one, illustrating the Kids’ defeat of the Geezers ...

• The Gravenhurst, Ontario summer spiel is always a good time ...

• A new European Junior Curling Tour has been announced, with more here. There are three stops announced thus far and the project is steered by the Danish curling coach Sune Frederiksen (Czech Republic) with help from Norway’s Ole Ingvaldsen and Scotland’s Rhona Martin. This welcome initiative is sure to grow, and kudos to WCT-E ...

• Here’s a pretty good wipeout in Strasbourg, France ...

• This one is a beauty: an off-the-wall gem outdoors in the fading sun ...

• Bob Weeks talks golf and curling on The Curling Show ...

• In what was labelled by London’s venerable Daily Mail as “one of the most audacious recruitment raids since Australia poached a million Britons in the 1950s and 60s”, the Canadian province of Alberta has been calling on Britons to emigrate to Canada, and curling has apparently been mentioned as a lure. Well, then ...

• Here’s another sales page for the silly but cute Ice Cube Curling, and here’s an online promo, too ...

• And finally, commercial spots that poke fun at curling are nothing new, and we only fail to appreciate those which lack decent humour. But does anyone fail to see the irony in a sports betting company taking such a potshot? Canada’s Richard Daneault and Carter Rycroft star in this one from Spain – against their will, and that of CBC-TV, no doubt ...

The Curler

It’s back.

The Curler was a staple of Manitoba curling club reading for about 15 years, but hasn’t been around for a while. Back in late February, publisher Resby Coutts – recently the MR guy of the Manitoba Curling Association, who also hosts a Sunday morning radio program called “Rock Talk” on Winnipeg’s CFRW AM1290 – brought it back to online life and we have watched it become a great little website. Check it out... and with provincial associations all meeting in the lead up to next week’s big annual Canadian Curling Association Congress, there’s lots to digest.

Briefly:

• They’re turning away curling-crazed people in Aukland, New Zealand... check out this Kiwi TV report ...

• Meanwhile, they went “Turkey Curling” in the Middle East the other day, and these guys hosted “Ferret Curling” in Ottawa yesterday ...

• Curling Today reports that, amongst other cool stuff, there’s a new Scottish curling forum up and running, and also that world champ Kelly Scott will compete in Scotland in mid-January, at a lucrative new WCT-E event ...

• Still with Scotland, did you know they’re planning a new tourist centre overlooking the legendary Ailsa Craig? That would cost some 30 million pounds? Tis true, read on here ...

• Finally, the new Grand Slam for women, the Sobey’s Slam, will be held on arena ice in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia ...