Insane curling week

There is so much going on, we almost don’t know where to begin. Prepare yourself for a dizzying ride... and you might want to bookmark this page!

We’ll start in British Columbia, host to two big events starting tomorrow.

First, the doors to the gigantic new 2010 Olympic and Paralympic curling venue – impressively labelled the Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic Centre – were thrown open to the public yesterday. Following the ceremonial first stone (photo by Metro) there was a full slate of activities running from 5:00pm to 8:00pm, such as curling demonstrations – featuring 2002 Olympian Georgina Wheatcroft (who seems to have been hanging around all week) and emcee Ray Turnbull of TSN – plus a multicultural assortment of performers, including dancers, bagpipers, a hip-hop crew, stilt-dancers (!) and a South Asian bhangra team.

Plus free munchies, free pins from Canadian Olympic broadcaster CTV, Olympian and Paralympian autograph sessions, inukshuk-building and of course the official Vancouver 2010 mascots – Quatchi, Miga, and Sumi.

You can see pics and stories via Canwest, and the Globe (with the bazillion-dollar cost breakdown) while this Canadian Press squib mentions disappointment in the seating, saying “Canada's love for curling could easily have filled more than 6,000 seats.” We agree.

Dubbed “The Centre of it All” for last night’s bash, the facility will also boast an impressive post-Games legacy – a brand-new, eight-sheet Vancouver Curling Club, an NHL-size ice rink, a 6,200-square-metre aquatic centre (with a 50-metre lap pool, leisure pool, outdoor pool and hot tub), a 9,300-square-metre community centre complete with full-size gym, multi-purpose rooms and fitness centre, a library, field house and offices.

The best link, however, is this one from the World Curling Federation, because it previews the 2009 World Wheelchair Curling Championship, which starts tomorrow.

Canada’s six-time Brier competitor Jim Armstrong – who hails from Vancouver – now skips the national team, and he leads the hometown heroes against mighty Norway (two-time defending champion), Korea (whose 2008 silver-winning skip actually yells at the rocks, believing they will listen), Germany (winners of the Challenge qualifier back in November), China (it’s their first appearance, and they have an average age of just 24), Scotland (their skipper won two worlds and Paralympic silver in 2006) and the United States (winners of 2008 bronze).

As the WCF story points out, no less than four websites will be dishing results, shot-by-shot graphics, news and photos, so be sure to stay plugged in over the next nine days.

The International Paralympic Committee also has a preview here.

But that’s not all, for B.C.

The Scotties Tournament of Hearts also starts up Saturday, from nearby Victoria, with wall-to-wall TV coverage on The Sports Network... and live scoring at the event website... lots of media and predictions... and maybe even some occasional blogging from The Curling News, who knows?

Also, the U.S. Olympic Team Trials start tomorrow in Colorado. This is a combined championship, which will send the winning teams to the women’s worlds in Gangneung and the Ford World Men’s in Moncton... and also to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games next year. So for the Yanks, this it... right here and right now, baby.

Even USA Today has taken notice, with this feature on the wide generation gap on Team Erika Brown also including a link to “Relive the curling action from the 2006 Games”. Nice.

There’s more U.S. Trials media here (Duluth-based story and video) and here (featuring Wisconsin’s Debbie McCormick)... and even from this guy, who wrote a decent piece except for the not-too-thinly-veiled opening shots.

And did you know you can the playoffs live online, via Universal Sports?

Wait, there’s more.

As you saw in our previous post, we have spies on the ground at the Winter Universiade in Harbin, China, and we’re looking forward to more bird’s-eye viewpoints coming from the other side of the globe.

And now back to Vancouver for a second. The aforementioned VCC is hosting a Mixed Doubles bonspiel tomorrow... and this reminds us that this year’s 2009 World Mixed Doubles
are in gorgeous Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy, which of course will be hosting the 2010 World Men’s. So there you go.

And what about events that are ending this weekend? Geez, where do we start?

• Manitoba men’s provincial: live scoring located here, some Shaw TV game coverage via webstreaming here and some recent media here ...

• The Scottish men (scoring here) and women (scoring here) are almost into playoffs, with expert commentary located here ...

• The European Youth Olympic Festival (say what?) going on in Poland (say what again?) is into curling’s gold medal games... today! Scoring here!

• The Swiss men and women have their championship finals on Saturday... but to be perfectly honest, we can’t seem to find the link anymore.

And with that, our brains are fried. Pfffttt.

2009 Universiade curling

Last March, Canadian Curling Association National Development Coach Paul Webster did some TCN Blogging from Vierumaki, Finland at the first-ever World Mixed Doubles Championship.

Webster – and Team Canada – are now in Harbin, China at the 24th Winter Universiade, aka the World University Games. And they’re off and running (er, curling) ...

by Paul Webster

HARBIN, China – China here we come.... actually we are here! It was a bumpy travel road but things worked out in our favour and we made it in time for our first practice!

But not before curling – or some wild form of it – was included in an amazing opening ceremony (photo above).

The round robin features 10 men’s and 10 women’s teams, and this is the third time that curling has featured as a medal sport at the Winter Universiade. Other sports include ice hockey, figure skating, speedskating, alpine skiing, Nordic combined, snowboarding, free-style skiing, cross country skiing, biathlon and ski jumping.

As this is for The Curling News Blog, I’ll stick to curling updates! We are now two games into both the women’s and men’s round robin competitions. Currently China is topping the list for both events with a perfect 2-0 record... which should be no surprise to anyone here. When the decision was made to send their top two squads, the possibility of double-gold on their home soil became exactly that... a definite possibility.

There may be an argument about these Games being a great tool to help develop curling in countries around the world... but there are a few here who are not messing around, and have simply sent their best teams – with China and Russia leading the pack. Other countries, ours included, see this age group as a target market that we want to keep involved in the sport throughout their studies... and the lure of an international event has created some great teams across our country.

Our Canadian men, skipped by Mike Anderson, are currently 1-1 after winning their game this morning against the Japanese. We lost our opener against an extremely tough Swedish team with Scottish import Niklas Edin skipping the team (and if you watched December’s Continental Cup, you will understand the joke!). These boys have a very strong squad and should be somewhere on the podium at the end of the week.

China is doing what they should be doing... and winning! Korea has to be the surprise team so far, with a couple of very strong wins and arguably the all star skip of the event at this early stage..... young Kim C M is on fire!

On the girls’ side of things, our ladies – skipped by Hollie Nicol – are 2-0 and tied for top spot. They had a great comeback victory with an extra-end steal in their first game... against mighty Russia! The Russians have sent four-fifths of their Olympic women’s team here, to see if they can avenge the loss of the 2007 Winter Universiade final in Torino. I’m not sure if they have have a second team as these girls have played in just about everything, and definitely feel at home in an arena setting. They looked a little shaky to start the event... but then so did everyone else... and I’d expect to see them in the top of the standings at the end of the event

Hats off to FISU for organizing a great competition. Scotland’s Jeannette Johnson and her Chinese organizing committee have done an outstanding job covering all the bases. The best decision they have made was bringing in icemakers Scott Henderson and Doug Wright... conditions have been amazing and continue to impress all of the teams.

I will update more often, now that the internet has been hooked up at the venue and in the village!

Another Slam, the Bender Cam and more

There’s lots going on as we put the finishing touches on the February issue of The Curling News – have you subscribed yet? – so here’s a linkfest to keep you going. Crack knuckles... now...

• Jeff Stoughton (above) is on home ice as the third Capital One Grand Slam, the BDO Classic Canadian Open, gets underway tonight at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg. The event website is located here.

Local blatster Jim Bender sets up the CTRS chase and also talks to Kerry Burtnyk about the recent Brier memories, while Freepman Chris Cariou spotlights young gun Mike McEwen.

Three playoff games will be televised on CBC this weekend, and don’t forget the Capital One “Million Dollar Button” contest, which will be a part of the TV package. They’re jetting in from across Canada for this one – like this gal from Fergus, Ontario – and two people were also selected from 3,300 online entries submitted over the last few months... like this fellow from B.C.

Didn’t know about this? Quit whining; we showed you the link weeks ago ...

• The Manitoba men’s field looks to be almost complete and... but... good lord... Sun Media has given Bender a videocamera, and told him to get out there and file moving pictures, in addition to words. What is this world coming to?

• Meanwhile, the manitoba gals are all set, as are the Ontario men’s and women’s provincial fields (that was a news story, here’s the OCA draw page) ...

• The Nova Scotia women’s Scotties are already underway, and here’s a quick preview ...

• The Ontario Seniors are over and done, with Bruce Delaney and Cheryl McBain taking the 2009 titles. What this summary story fails to tell you is that multiple Canadian and World senior champion Anne Dunn lost the women’s final. Of course, Joe Pavia has that tidbit in his latest column... meanwhile, over on PEI, the 2009 Senior champs are Mel Bernard and Shirley Berry ...

• Here’s a southern Alberta update, leading off with men’s playdowns this coming weekend ...

• Speaking of Burtnyk, he will be speaking about his past cancer battles at a luncheon in April, which is affiliated with the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers football team ...

• Former Brier skip Jim Armstrong won his second straight B.C. wheelchair curling championship last weekend, but has already been named skip of Team Canada at next month’s 2009 World Wheelchair Championship in Vancouver. 2006 Paralympic champion Sonja Gaudet, who was on Gerry Austgarden’s runner-up team, was named as the alternate. There’s a recent feature on Gaudet located here ...

• Back in Ontario, the city of Kingston beat out 2008 hosts Collingwood to win the bid to host the 2010 Ontario ParaSport Winter Games, which will include wheelchair curling at the Royal Kingston Curling Club ...

• And Napanee, which is only some 40 kilometres west of Kingston, will be hosting the 2010 Ontario men’s provincial Tankard ...

• The Toronto Curling Association has a new sponsor (top news story) for the venerable men’s bonspiel ...

• DID YOU KNOW: that both of Canada’s teams in the upcoming 2009 Winter Universiade (World University Games) in China are from Wildfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario?

• Finally, Cold-FX has joined the Vancouver Olympic sponsor family. And those of you who remember just how bad 1998 Canadian Olympic men’s skip Mike Harris had it in the gold-medal final will note the company’s opening tagline:

Colds and flu were a big problem for Canada at the Nagano 1998 Winter Games. Thirty-six Canadian athletes, coaches and trainers, including figure skater Elvis Stojko, long track speed skater Neal Marshall, as well as the curling team, came down with colds or flu.