Murdoch wins, Gushue praised

It’s all over in St. Petersburg, Russia, where David Murdoch’s Scottish champions upended Canada’s Brad Gushue, the 2006 Olympic champion, by a 6-3 score in the final.

Pal Trulsen’s 2002 Olympic champs won the bronze, defeating one of the Russian entries 5-4.

In the semifinals, Gushue edged Trulsen 6-5 in an extra-end while Murdoch took out the Russians 7-4.

In the WCT-E photo above (click to zoom in), we note a few things:

1. The event trophies are huge but the individual trophies are quite small!

2. Gushue (far left) deserves an award for fearlessly perching on the very edge of the silver podium without taking a tumble, while his teammates - front enders no less! – stand comfortably in safety. Lead stone Jamie Korab even gets to hold the big trophy!

3. Peter Smith of Scotland – the big guy – has just won way too many trophies in his long career.

4. Who is the new Norwegian lead? We thought coach Ole Ingvaldsen was actually throwing rocks during the week.

5. Note the coloured confetti on the ice. It probably exploded up into the air when the Scots received their championship trophy. But they probably didn’t bounce up and down, chanting, for fear of collapsing the podium.

6. Finally, we note the cool hair and duds on the Master of Ceremonies. That guy has it goin’ on.

So, it’s all over, and the event certainly looked to be a resounding success. We’ve got some comments from World Curling Tour Europe ED Armin Harder, who spoke to TCN about the Canadians:

“The Gushue boys are true sportsmen... they are great ambassadors for the game and for their country. The European Tour really appreciates their flying all that way from Newfoundland. They’ve been the stars here and an enormous boost to our cause, and a pleasure to have along.”

Russia: on-ice action

NEWSFLASH: The Gushues defeat Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud 6-3 on Saturday afternoon, and move their win/loss record to 3-0.

Poor Ulsrud... the defending world bronze medallist is now 0-3, having lost his first two matches to Russian teams by scores of 7-3 and 5-4. Yikes.

In this game action photo, the photographer obviously stepped from the sideline right onto the ice behind Gushue third Mark Nichols! Will this be a new photojournalism rule for the 2014 Olympic curling event in Sochi?

More later...

WCT-E photo courtesy Armin Harder (click photo for zoom image)

Curling Korab reports from Russia

Hey look! It’s Team Gushue’s Jamie Korab, right here on the TCN Blog!

What’s up, Jamie? How is Russia?


What was supposed to be a 24 hour travel day turned into 30 hours... after a late departure from St. John’s – three hours late due to fog – we missed every connection. Even the flight we did make in England got cancelled for some reason. Oh well. St. John’s - Toronto - London - Frankfurt - St. Petersburg.

We made it in at 12 midnight. So much for sightseeing – we pretty much off to bed.

News conference and then we played two games yesterday against two Russian teams. First game was started perfect by Korab – two draws called, one in the hack, one hogged. Whoops – setting the bar low for the season! Everyone was a little green when they started, but we really came around in the second half of our first six-end game.

We won the first game 8-1 and also won the second one by a 7-5 score. The ice is wicked – it’s 23.5 seconds with about three-to-four feet of curl. It gets a little frosty, maybe due to the fact that it’s in a shopping mall!


Don’t forget to check results here, and we’ll also put a plug in for the Team Gushue Facebook group, which is even bigger than our Facebook group (harumph!). You can visit there for the team schedule, photos, info and so on.

More from Russia coming soon!

WCT-E photo courtesy Armin Harder... click photo to increase size

Shopping Mall Curling in Russia

World Curling Tour Europe – these guys, not these guys – have leaped into the headlines with word of an annual curling exhibition being hosted in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Date of the first event is almost imminent: July 25-27, 2008.

The format sees five international men’s teams of considerable heft being jetted into the city to join three local teams, as yet undetermined.

Invited and accepted are:

Brad Gushue – Canada
Pal Trulsen – Norway
Thomas Ulsrud – Norway
David Murdoch – Scotland
Andy Kapp – Germany

Key to the venture is new WCT-E partner Adamant Construction & Property Management, a rather large Russian developer that happens to own some 1.7 million square metres of property in that city alone.

They also own a few shopping centres, including a big one that happens to boast a small ice rink. A rink that has seen curling displays in the past.

As such, shopping mall curling has come to Russia, just as it came briefly to the world’s biggest mall in Edmonton, and more recently (but sadly no longer) to a mid-sized mall in Galt, Ontario.

“It’s a bit of a breakthrough for us,” said WCT-E chief exec Armin Harder, a Canadian who lives in Switzerland.

“Adamant are covering all the costs, and the idea is to do this quite a few times leading in to Sochi in 2014.

“We look forward to putting on a good show for these guys.”

And what do the players think?

“We were pretty surprised,” said Gushue.

“We were notified by Armin Harder that the event was in the works and they asked if we were interested in attending. Of course, we said yes. But we didn’t want to get too excited until we knew for sure that the event was a go. Once we heard it was a go we got really excited.

“We have our tickets booked and we are looking forward to it... should be a great experience. Hopefully the event will help raise the profile of the game in Russia and add another event on the WCT-E for down the road.”

And on the western front:

“We are happy to be among those top teams that have been invited to this
event,” said Füssen’s Andy Kapp.

“St. Petersburg is a fantastic and booming city and to play a tournament in the middle of summer heat will be very interesting. In Germany and Switzerland we are used to playing tournaments in July and August, but not in a shopping center and not in Russia. If the ice isn’t melting, we will melt it!”