Obama in Canada

There’s Obamamania in Ottawa as the new CIC of the world’s biggest superpower arrives in Canada, the world’s biggest curling superpower, this morning for his first international visit.

Speculation says this brief jaunt is all business. But you just know Canadian PM Stephen Harper will find a moment to mention his biggest love (hockey). And what if he gets a chance to mention his second-biggest love, The Roaring Game?

As such... could Barack Obama be convinced to chuck a few bricks at the Ottawa? Or perhaps the Rideau? Maybe the RCMP? Yeah... that one might actually be permitted by the Secret Service.

By the way: for any presidential security watchdogs reading this, please relax... “chucking bricks” is curling slang for delivering the 42-pound stones within a curling venue or facility... um, never mind.

Actually, as a Canadian Press story recently pointed out, there has been some pleasant surprise at the level of Canuck-savvy shown by various members of the White House press corps. One of them even claimed curling as one of his favourite pastimes.

“I started playing when I was about 12,” said Alexander Duncan, a Maryland native who writes for the Platts energy and environment newsletter.

“I have basically been playing for most of my life. I know a lot of Canadians through my club – a lot of expats, actually. Some of my closest friends through curling are Canadians.”

So welcome, Mr. President!

Now just don’t get all protectionist on us, m’kay?

Curling Politics

There’s a federal election underway in Canada, and the reigning Conservatives are pulling out the stops in portraying Prime Minister Stephen Harper as an Average Guy.

Average Guys, of course, love curling, as the Tories have now pointed out. They have supported said pointout with this YouTube video (screen capture above) of the PM at the 2007 Tim Hortons Brier in Hamilton, an occasion which we mentioned, among with many others (see here, and here and here).

In fact, we’ve always been partial to the PM’s curling pedigree – wethinks our first Harper curling reference was this photo of him posing with the legendary Sam Richardson.

Even the congratulations templates released by the PMO ring true, at least compared to those issued by The Other Guys. For example, compare this congrats note sent to the 2008 world champion Kevin Martin squad to this rather poor effort.

PMO release good, Liberal release lame. Kind of like the overall scenario facing the voters, don’t you agree?

We’re voting blue... aren’t you?


Elsewhere:


• They’re on the ice in Spain today, for the sixth Madrid International Bonspiel. One team making its tournament debut is “Nagano 1998”, the reunited Olympic champions from Switzerland, skipped by Patrick Huerlimann, who will also take in the big football game (Real Madrid vs. Numancia) on Sunday. Among the other 39 teams listed are the “Broomer Penguins”, the “B-52”, team “Vicious and Delicious” and, inevitably, “Priapismus Shuffle” ...

• U.S. wheelchair curling skip Augusto Perez is the keynote speaker at Syracuse University tonight ...

• It’s official: Russ Howard has split with longtime teammate Grant Odishaw, and has reunited with Jimmy “The Kid” Grattan ...

• Vancouver’s Kent Gilchrist wrote this follow-up piece on the Brazil/USA challenge ...

• And finally, calling all Winnipeg female curlers: you are wanted for a TV shoot – the new CBC-TV dramedy Throwing Stones – this Monday, September 15 through Wednesday the 17th. You must have your own gear and be prepared for loooong days. Contact Kari Casting or check out this posting at CurlingZone ...

A whole new curling world

VERNON – Quite a show, that Worlds was (CCA photo by Michael Burns – click to enlarge).

Once again, as we declared following Canada’s championship, the women of curling put on a fine show. Play was generally aggressive and miles ahead of what we saw even a year ago. And if China were half as aggressive in the final as they had been during the week, they just might have gone all the way.

But there is nothing to take away from the new world champions. Rarely has the curling world seen a display of gutsy, never-say-die performance... and not over just one nine-day tournament, but two.

But the real story was China and Japan, and what lies ahead for the future. As WCF President Les Harrison opined a couple of days ago:

“Regardless of how this championship develops, the world curling landscape has been redefined, possibly forever. What we have seen this week confirms the global growth of our sport, certainly at the high-performance level.

“China was the number one team all week. Japan is in the playoffs. Meanwhile, Canada lost twice, the U.S. is out and Scotland was knocked out very early.

“It’s a whole new world of curling out there.”

Here’s a few links to wrap up the Ford Worlds, starting with Jim Bender and moving to Paul Wiecek, and then not just one but two from Cookie Gilchrist... to this Canwest cleanup, which includes updates on the Scottish mayhem and the good-news ending to the bad-news theft ... plus, TV ratings in Canada were big, and now wonder... the Prime Minister was watching, too!

Oh, and ya just gotta love Bingyu ...


And more ...

• Here’s yet another anti-CBC, pro-TSN curling complainer – of course, TSN doesn’t run commercials, right?

• Upon reading this column’s mention of a gold-medal shootout between Jennifer Jones and Bingyu Wang, we are guessing Laurie Mustard is a humour writer ...

• This would seem to be a techno-geek gone wild for curling ...

• Did any Yanks watch WCSN’s debut curling coverage? Here’s a summary posted to YouTube ...

• They were watching in Portugal, of all places, and more than one ...

• Eugene beat Russ Howard and Pat beat Anne at the Canadian Seniors ...

• Paul Webster, who blogged for us during the World Mixed Doubles in Finland, has been whirling through New Zealand (here and here), which also hosts next November’s Pacific Curling Championships ...

• A great post here from Curling Today (hint: note the date) ...

• Benny Heebz might write a football column, eh? He already wrote a pretty good one on curling... and here he is spotlighted in a World Men’s preview from Miss Vicki Hall ...

• Bigfish is selling a curling video game here – or you can download to play for one hour for free ... wonder which game this is?

• Our weird foto of the day is located here. Far out ...

• And the runner-up photos are all located here ...

• We agree, Arctic Curling would’ve been a natural ...

• Here’s some curling Reactions from a design studio in Queens, New York City ...

• This is a VERY interesting thought, considering the inevitability of HDTV curling coverage ...

• Wonder what Paul and Yuki thought of Japan’s performance in Vernon?

• Some amazing curling wipeouts captured on this page ...

• Here was WCSN producer Pete, teching some curling last week ...

• Eurorsport Sweden commentator and WCF Records and Results statistician Paul Ahlgren explains why German curling teams get the bulk of the coverage on the Eurosport network ...

• Once again... and this time, we’ll speak slowly: You. Are. Not. Funny. At. All.

• SongMonk looked up some old curling patents ...

• Face it, folks, some of you are simply going to suck!

• And finally, it turns out the Prime Minister wasn’t the only Canadian politician to congratulate the Jones team. It’s no surprise that Stephane Dion’s release reads exactly like what it is: something thrown together by someone who has no clue about the sport, unlike Stephen Harper, who is a genuine fan.

Wayne, Yoni and Stephen Harper

Did you catch Wayne Middaugh on TSN’s Off The Record yesterday?

He swore he’d be up north snowmobiling for all 10 days of the Brier, but there he was, in TSN’s Toronto studio, babbling about the Brier, men’s versus women’s curling (hello!) and so on.

You can catch the show on the TSN broadband webpage, via the show link, but there’s more coming up. It’s Brier week on OTR as Mr. Hurry Hard, aka the Wounded Bull Moose (er, that would be Russ Howard) is on today’s afternoon show. Tomorrow, it’s the somewhat quieter (and other) Moose, aka Moosie, TSN commentator Ray Turnbull.

Big events like the Brier bring out all types. There’s really good journos, like the Globe’s Stephen Brunt, who when not crafting quality pieces like this is pretending – rather poorly, we might add – to know nothing about curling on The Bobcat’s incendiary FAN 590 radio/Sportsnet TV talk show.

There’s also misguided political miscreants who pipe up, like Yoni Goldstein did yesterday on the Nat Post’s blogsplotch. Curling Sucks? Now there’s a header designed to bring forth fire and brimstone. To hell with you, we humbly suggest.

Must be a Liberal. Canada’s curling-mad PM, Stephen Harper, is on his way to Copps as we type this. Maybe he can help Merk with the ice conditions.

Did anyone catch Danko? Let us know how The Mango Kid did on his debut curling night on Friday. Canada’s national music pub, incidentally, picked up our story from last week, even adding a mention of Hamilton’s legendary Dik Van Dykes and their Curling song. Awesome.

Elsewhere:

• DID YOU KNOW? ... that you could win a trip to the Ford Worlds? Get clicking ...

• DID YOU KNOW II? ... that Saskatchewan women’s alternate Sherry Linton wrote a daily dairy online during the Scotties? It’s still available, in all its glory, right here at Saskcurl. But just one question: what the heck is Flippycup?

• Finally, it’s official… a pipe band does indeed blare “louder than a jet engine”. And now we wonder if the Brier committee will perch a platoon of pipers way up in the Copps rafters for their closing ceremonies, amid growing spotlights, as they did in both 1991 and 1996? The soft part of our callow heart hopes they do, as those were quite the moments ...