The Weakerthans

While various rock acts have been known to play at large curling events – say hello Randy Bachman, Ashley MacIsaac, David Wilcox and Danko Jones – Canadian folk-rockers The Weakerthans are the latest musical act to follow in the footsteps of Hammerfall, Gob, The Tragically Hip and The Constantines in crafting real curling themes into their music.

The new song Tournament of Hearts – which can be heard on the band’s MySpace page – is hard core curling, with its references to “championship banners going yellow on the wall” and “peeling off the (beer) label as they peel the corner guard.” It is, however, a love song... just as Men With Brooms is really a love story.

Frontman John K. Samson – throwing a rock with a cool hat above – speaks about curling in this video mobisode, and in fact quotes from a legendary curling book (anyone recognize the cover? We do).

There are also stories available from CP and Canuck music mag Exclaim!, while our good friends at Chart have a mostly negative CD review here.

Will the 2008 Tim Hortons Brier committee draft these proud Winnipeggers into playing a gig at the Keith’s Patch in March?

• Police have already arrested three people following yesterday afternoon’s suspected arson job on the Windsor Curling Club ...

• Yorkton’s popular stop on the Asham World Curling Tour has been cancelled for 2007.

“On behalf of the Yorkton Curling Club and the Curling Classic committee, we unfortunately have to announce a one year leave of absence from the PharmaChoice Curling Classic for 2007 due to team scheduling conflicts and other extenuating circumstances that are beyond our control,” committee chair and 1999 Brier semi-finalist Gerald Shymko told the Yorkton This Week & Enterprise.

“We will be working hard to alleviate any conflicts for 2008 and will be putting our efforts into making next year's spiel bigger and better than ever.”

The good news is while the eight-year event will be on hiatus, chief sponsor PharmaChoice Western will continue supporting the local curling club.

“We’re not just laying down and letting this go,” Shymko added.

“We’re hoping the scheduling works better where the teams can travel and come back to Yorkton next year. And, we’ll be going all out to get the spiel back into this community.”

• Speaking of Men With Brooms, here’s what writer/actor/director Paul Gross is up to these days ...

• Got a suggestion for a podcast guest on The Curling Show? Just mosey on over to the Zone and name your name ...

• Joe Pavia spoke with KMart over the weekend ...

• Finally, the European Mixed Championships are underway in the Spanish city of Madrid, and local voices are are starting to noice (here and also here) ... plus, Bob Cowan is actually there ...

Windsor club destroyed

As Nova Scotia’s Windsor Curling Club burned to the ground yesterday, defending provincial Brier skip Mark Kehoe took this picture (above). Thanks to TCN correspondent Teri Lake for forwarding it.

Kehoe is quoted in today’s Daily News while his club manager offers comments to the Canadian Press regarding the latest curling facility to be destroyed.

A club fundraiser was planned for this weekend.

Yes indeed, curlers are whiners

Well, well... what have we here?

Winnipeg is in an uproar today as the internal news of Asham’s cancellation of that city’s major Asham World Curling Tour event has now exploded into the public forum (also located here).

The Curling Show was quick to get Arnold Asham himself on the horn, and while there are varying reasons why the event has been cancelled, there is one idea percolating which The Curling News must sadly agree with: curlers – in particular the competitive breed – are indeed among the biggest whiners in the world of sports.

This phenomenon has actually been discussed in some major boardrooms of the sport, and many believe it’s a simple consequence of the very nature of curling as a self-managed and self-policed sport.

Think about it. Opposite to most other amateur or professional sports, curlers are somehow permitted to:

• “hire” and “fire” their own team members
• operate with or without a coach or alternate, if they so choose
• police their own game, except at various provincial, national and world championships

This is so ingrained into the sport of curling – and so alien a concept to so many other sports – that curlers reading this are probably getting hot under the collar at the phrase “permitted to.”

In many other sports, even the equivalent of a top curling skip is told – by various sport coaches, managers, owners and/or bureaucrats – what to do and when to do it. And what’s more, you’ll darned well like it, mister!

Even the nature of the curling governance structure lends credence to this concept. Some other sport leaders would shake their heads if told that Canada’s national curling association is merely an umbrella organization, with limited to non-existent power to actually direct the strategy and activities of the provincial associations.

And you can rest assured their jaws are still lying on the floor, two years later, over the public spectacle of irate curling fans forcing that governing body to tear up a multi-year television contract and redo the entire thing... by unleashing a torrent of bad press and even going so far as to threaten sponsors.

From an outside-the-sport perspective, you’ve gotta be kidding!

In this context, curlers get away with murder when compared to other athletes in other sports and will obviously not hesitate to bray loudly if something irks them.

What is tragic is the curler’s tendency to bray the loudest when his or her competitive team is adversely affected by a given situation. It’s hard to ignore the level of selfishness that often ingrains itself into such a self-governed sport.

Then again, curlers still aren’t “paid” very much for their services, are they?

Or aren’t they?

And is that not an entirely different kettle of fish?

Or not?


Elsewhere:

• The Curling Show also has a segment with icemaking madman Shorty Jenkins ...

• In Brockville, Glenn Howard beat Brad Gushue to win the Shorty Jenkins Classic, in a repeat of the Brier final result from last March. Reigning champ Kevin Martin lost the semi to Howard, while Wayne Middaugh’s super-team with Jon Mead and Graeme McCarrel – and Ian Tetley and Scott Bailey – lost the quarterfinal to Howard. Russ who?

On the women’s side, Debbie McCormick most enjoyed the vibrant Canadian dollar, as her Team USA upended Quebec’s Eve Bélisle in the final match ...

• In Galt/Cambridge, the BDO Galt Classic was a big hit in the shopping mall and on Rogers Television... at least the men’s final, as Darryl Prebble surprised Mike Harris with a 6-5 victory for the championship, which was also The Battle For Scarborough (Prebble represents Scarborough Golf Club, while Harris appears to be back at neighboring Tam Heather).

The women’s final was a dud as Julie Reddick made it two spiels in a row with a 13-5 bombing of Colleen Madonia, but Hollie Nicol’s junior team from Kitchener-Waterloo impressed by losing the semi-final to Reddick by a 7-6 count.

“After losing, we said give us five minutes and we’ll be happy with the weekend,” Nicole told The Record. “Our goal was to make the playoffs, and we did that.”

• Over in Edmonton, the locals must be smarting over the fact that a couple of visiting teams waltzed into their town, kicked everyone’s butt and left with the big cash. Bingyu Wang of China crushed Glenys Bakker of Calgary 8-1 in the Boston Pizza women’s final, while Saskatchewan’s Pat Simmons beat Kelly Row, Randy Ferbey and then Brent MacDonald to win the men’s cheque ...

• The same thing happened over in Norway, as Canadian invaders took out their European opposition at the Radisson SAS Oslo Cup. Edmonton’s Kevin Koe took out the perhaps-not-so-retired Pål Trulsen 7-2 to win the men’s crown, while Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones defeated Saskatchewan’s Sherry Anderson 7-6 in an all-Canuck women’s final. A couple of Scottish teams, skipped by Kelly Wood and Claire Milne, made the semis.

• The second Grand Slam of Curling event has been announced, and once again the small Cape Breton city of Port Hawkesbury will play host to The National, this time running Dec. 20-23.

“Having the Grand Slam of Curling returning to Port Hawkesbury for a third consecutive year is a tribute to the local community, businesses, volunteers and organizers as each group has been instrumental in making The National such a success,” said Port Hawkesbury Mayor Billy Joe MacLean. “We’re looking forward to hosting the top curling teams from Canada, the United States and Europe in late December and this prestigious world class event will serve as a welcomed early holiday gift for the residents of Port Hawkesbury.”

The Grand Slam events feature a pile of Canada’s top men’s squads including Martin, The National’s defending champion, along with Ferbey, Gushue, Glenn Howard and 2003 Tylenol Players’ Champion Jeff Stoughton.

The top 15 Canadian men’s teams, along with two European squads and one entry from the United States of America, will compete in The National. A complete list of participating teams will be announced in November ...

• BalancePlus has sent out a cool notice summarizing the “Battle of the Brushes” this past weekend; ie. they’ve just announced the teams wielding their new tapered blue and orange BalancePlus brushes this season: Teams Harris and Peter Corner (semi-finalist in Brockville) and also Team Sherry Middaugh (lost semis at Galt).

These teams will help BalancePlus raise funds for Prostate Cancer Research via an end-of-year auction of each brushe, which will be covered in autographs. The funds raised from the auction will be split between Prostate Cancer Research and the Canadian Paraplegic Association.

BP’s pink brushes, now widely available, will continue as a fundraiser for Breast Cancer. You can add to the support by purchasing one of these charity-connected items today ...

• Finally, a sad occurrence in Japan over the weekend ...

Curling superstars in Moncton

Lots of pickup of the WCF announcement of the 2009 Ford Worlds in Moncton, including Bill Graveland’s story featuring local hero Russ Howard.

Russ was there for the announcement, of course, alongside a series of curling legends (see photo)... in fact, can anyone name these past heroes? Post to our blog’s Comments section below this story, and you just might win something.

We fully expect Bacon to be among the first respondents... will someone else top him to win?

Still with Moncton, Lorne Mitton – the curling mayor – has announced he will not run for another term... so, will Mitton take a volunteer role with the Ford Worlds organizing committee?

• Finally, Russ Howard will help hockey’s Moncton Wildcats offer a $10,000 prize to a spectator during an on-ice curling challenge. The fun takes place on September 23 ...

Elsewhere:

• There are multiple events on tap this weekend – Shorty, Galt, Oslo, Edmonton etc. – and all results are available on CurlingZone’s Gameday Scoreboard, right here in the middle of your page when you log in. Boom. There’s nowhere else you need to go!

• Ontario curling fans can tune in this weekend and see the Galt finales on local TV ...

• The International Olympic Committee and the seven Olympic Winter Sport Federations recently met in Vancouver to discuss the progress of the 2010 Games, and the World Curling Federation has posted an update ...

• Kelly Scott’s defending world champions are in Regina tomorrow and Sunday, promoting the 2008 Scotties in the Queen City, where they will represent Team Canada. Also on the agenda is a challenge match against Joel Jordison’s men’s team ...

• The Manitoba Curling Tour finally has a good date for their championships, plus a new website, too ...

• Denver has won the right to host the U.S. Nats/Trials in 2009... and perhaps this angry bird might even attend. Meanwhile, there’s almost as much media coverage of Bismark’s loss...

• Finally, it seems these guys have discovered the Norberg/Hammerfall video... nearly two years after the fact. We thought the internet worked faster than that ...?

New Canadian event website

Some quick mouse clicks for your fingers (and eyes) this morning ...

• The Canadian Curling Association has rejigged their look for the new season, which includes a new dedicated site for their championships. The site features all of their familiar championships in one hub, and for the first time in the public forum, the story of the Season of Champions concept, complete with a nifty promotional video ...

• Meanwhile, Dean Gemmell’s The Curling Show has new CCA CEO Greg Stremlaw in the hot seat ...

• Saskatchewan’s Sherry Anderson is ready for another season. Are you? ...

• Jumpin’ Joe Pavia is back, with his first Ottawa-area curling column ...

• According to the local blat, Brockville’s Shorty Jenkins Classic is ready to roll this coming weekend ...

• Scotland’s Curlathon was a very colourful affair yesterday ...

• Vernon’s host committee for the 2008 Ford World Women’s is just plain done looking for volunteers, as the response has been “overwhelming” ...

• Remember the name Joe Frans? The skilled Ontario curler who played third for John Morris in one Brier (2002) and second for Wayne Middaugh in another (2005) was suspended for two years following a doping infraction. He’s now back, and in a big way, as his new team won last night’s Ontario Curling Tour Championship. Julie Reddick, who has switched positions with former skip Jo-Ann Rizzo, won the women’s title ...

• And remember our story on the Sub-Zero Sweepers? Well, following that piece – and a South African marketing trade story on the cheeky advertising campaign by Nando’s Foods – the African bureau chief of Canada’s Globe & Mail has jumped in with a major feature, and we have a comment from the only Nando’s operation willing to talk about the campaign so far.

“I’m impressed that word of the Sub Zero Sweepers spread to Canada so quickly,” said Mark Majewski, National Marketing Director of Nando’s Canada. “If the South African team came to the Great White North anytime soon, I’m betting they’d quickly be schooled by our Canadian squad. The score would be ‘peri’ lopsided in Canada’s favour, I’m sure!”

2007-08 Season Launch

The curling season is underway.

In fact, this was first declared by the Scots – who have the divine right to make such a declaration, we say – back on September 3, but it really hit home on Sunday, as the results of the first major cash tournament of the year came in.

Item number one on both the World Curling Tour Europe and the Asham World Curling Tour was Switzerland’s Baden Masters, and 2006 Olympic winner Brad Gushue is the champion (photo by Urs Raeber). The new Gushues defeated recent Ford World runner-up Andy Kapp of Germany in the final, 5-4 in an extra end (the ninth), while Switzerland’s Andi Schwaller and Bernard Werthemann both lost in the semis. Big names also made the quarterfinals, in the person(s) of Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud and Scotland’s David Murdoch.

“Because we didn’t have any ice going into the event we didn’t know what to expect,” Gushue told The Curling News. “We’re excited to get off to a such a good start.”

A big announcement occurred in Atlantic Canada just moments ago, as the World Curling Federation made it official: the 2009 Ford World Men’s Championship will be hosted in Moncton, New Brunswick, April 4-12 of that year.

It will mark the 51st world men’s titleshoot, and follows Moncton’s legacy of hosting grand events, for the world (1980 Silver Broom) for Canada (1985 Brier) and for those who love money (1990 Moncton 100)... and 50th anniversary celebrations should be in full swing, as recently proposed by curling legend Doug Maxwell shortly before his death. The same Doug Maxwell who, incidentally, was the major architect of the Moncton 100, amongst his many, many sporting accomplishments.

We’ll have a full report on Maxwell’s recent memorial service, including thoughts from some of the many curling heavyweights who journeyed to the service, in the first print edition of The Curling News, coming out in late October. We invite you to subscribe, naturally.

And to anyone who dares think the 09 Worlds might not be a spectacular event, you are forgetting the mayor of Moncton is former CCA President Lorne Mitton. And that the current WCF President, Les Harrison, lives about 10 minutes away from the arena. And that the current CCA Vice-President is also a New Brunswicker.

Clearly, New Brunswick is well on its way to becoming the new epicentre of curling power. What’s next... will a prominent curling internet wizard, for example, relocate to some beachfront property near Fredericton? Could happen, but who knows. We’re just speculating.

Elsewhere, the curling news has been piling up ...

• Here’s a closer look at Niagara Falls native Greg Stremlaw, the new CCA CEO ...

• Is British Columbia’s Salmon Valley CC in trouble?

• Two members of the USA Senior Women’s team recently engaged in a new business startup – their own bank ...

• Curling has returned to Salt Lake City, as the Wasatch Curling Club’s Friday league – and Learn To Curl sessions – will wrap up soon, after September 21. Location is the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns ...

• Sounds like Midland, Minnesota will be getting a new curling club... while the Green Bay CC in Wisconsin is celebrating its 50th anniversary ...

• Remember the 2002 Worlds in Bismark, North Dakota? Their local media has gone bonkers over their one-in-three chance to host the 2009 U.S. Nationals, which will also serve as the U.S. Olympic Trials for 2010. Read all about it here, and here, and here ...

• Still with the U.S. – holy smokes! – they say that Hibbing will host the U.S. men’s and women’s national shootout. The men’s champs will head just down the highway to Grand Forks, North Dakota for the 2008 World Men’s ...

• Recent Canadian Brier competitor Jon Solberg is headed to Whitehorse to lead that city’s curling club, which will also host another WCT event in November ...

• First a brand new curling facility (as profiled in The Curling News); and now the gift of ancient stones in Swift Current, Saskatchewan ...

Doug Maxwell: Curling Giant

You can read a fair amount these days about Doug Maxwell, the curling impresario who passed away last Friday in his 80th year.

The news first broke via an obituary notice in the Globe & Mail, then Al Cameron ran a piece on Sunday, as did curling friend Bob Cowan in Scotland.

Tuesday saw a salute from the World Curling Federation and also from CBC, where Maxwell first plied his specialized trade of curling journalism.

Finally, today’s Owen Sound Sun-Times spotlights Maxwell’s impact on the Markdale community, and today’s Toronto Star also has a nice piece, with the print version including a recent photo of Maxwell at one of his beloved Skins Games (photo above by curling camera whiz Mark Snyder).

There’s even been a few calls for the world championship trophy to be renamed the Maxwell Cup.

We at The Curling News are in mourning, as Doug, or “DDM” as he was known, was more than simply a senior columnist. He was our Editor Emeritus, a title bestowned upon him after 20 years of owning the former Canadian Curling News, for which he also served as Publisher and Editor.

After rescuing CCN from certain collapse in 1980, Maxwell sold the paper in the fall of 2003, in the hopes that former CCN Associate Editor (and 1998 Olympian) George Karrys could carry the tradition forward. Four years later, The Curling News – plus this here blog – has solidified its status as the world’s top curling publication, turning heads with cutting-edge content, attractive design values, and even eye-catching TV commercials.

We started a new department for our 50th anniversary last fall, in which archived stories and photos from the past were reprinted – many of them written years ago by Maxwell himself – and the sheer degree of positive feedback will see us do this once again, as the calendar year will shortly carry us into our 51st publishing season.

We have our readers – in particular, our print subscribers – to thank for this success, but we have Doug Maxwell to thank for his direction, his work ethic, his standards of professionalism and, above all, his sheer love and passion for the world’s fastest growing winter sport. He was, and he remains, the inspiration of our commitment to first-class product. He was, and remains, a friend... who happens to command a remarkable curling legacy.

We are also in shock at the speed of his passing. In mid-August, Maxwell submitted a written proposal to the World Curling Federation, clearly indicated that despite recent health struggles, there was no stopping “Mr. Curling.”

However, an August 25 message detailed the bad news from doctors: his cancer had returned and was terminal, leaving only an estimated 5-10 months of opportunities left. Still, we all thought, we hadn’t heard the last from Doug.

Less than a week later, he was gone.

Gord Maxwell, one of Doug’s three sons, tells us that, if anything, his father left the impression he “was setting an example to me even in how he died.

“It was, to a certain extent, his program. He took (the bad news) the way he wanted, and it happened the way he wanted. There was no doubt in his mind, and he was calm and focussed.”

And so the curling world has lost another giant, just a year after the passing of Don “Buckets” Fleming, whom Maxwell himself labelled “an all-time curling character.” And as we prepare to gather in tiny Markdale, Ontario this Sunday, we shall leave you with some words from Doug Maxwell himself, as excerpted from his most recent book, Tales of a Curling Hack, which was published less than a year ago; an essential item for your bookshelf, now more than ever.

It’s been quite the ride since your first eight-ender, scored at Montréal in 1951, old friend. Rest well.


Being, on occasion, a modest sort of chap, I never thought much about my place in the world of curling. Oh, I knew that my commentator’s countenance on television, first with the CBC’s “Cross Canada Curling,” Brier telecasts, and a variety of curling shows in the sixties and seventies) and later with TSN (The Sports Network), gave me some sort of recognition. But I didn’t think it was anything other than the kind of notoriety that goes with boob tube familiarity.

I knew, too, that my 18-year stint as executive director of the Air Canada Silver Broom World Curling Championship had given me a certain profile among some of the elite players of the game, but I dismissed that as more face recognition than peer respect. After all, they were the stars of the show, and I was mainly the plumber, the promoter, the public presence of the event.

Then, following the publication of my 2002 book Canada Curls: The Illustrated History of Curling in Canada, I began to get letters asking questions or suggesting theories that the correspondents felt I could address. People seemed to think I might have a secret source of curling information, and, on the odd occasion, I realized maybe they were right. I had to admit that, yes, I might be the only one still alive who had some arcane detail or piece of curling trivia stuck in a recess of my mind.

I read in Bill Bryson’s fascinating book A Short History of Nearly Everything that when the British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington was asked “Is it true you are one of only three people in the world who actually understands Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?” the famous Brit was silent for a minute and then replied, “I’m trying to think who the other two might be.”

Once or twice, over the past few years, I have felt like Sir Arthur E. – not about Einstein’s theory, of course – but perhaps, maybe, curling? Without being too immodest, I think I bring a variety of credentials to the challenge of this book. At one time or another, I have been a broadcaster, reporter, official, umpire, statistician, organizer, promoter, innovator, sponsor and, most recently, a historian of the game. So occasionally, just like Eddington, I’ve tried to think who the other know-it-alls might be. And then, as I came up with their names, I recruited them to add some of their comments to mine. The result, I hope, will be fun for all of us...

... I titled this chapter “Completing the Circle.” Here’s why. In Chapter 1, I imagined a conversation between Baron Pierre de Coubertin and Vince Lombardi. Now that I have passed my biblical “three score and ten,” I have finally accepted the fact I will never fulfill Lombardi’s injunction by winning the Brier or the World. I do think, however, that I might qualify for a pat on the back from the Baron.

I think I have stayed the course, taken part. I have, perhaps, triumphed in some things, and I know I have been a part of the struggle. I may not have conquered too often, but I allow as how I have fought well.

I began my curling journey by covering the first Schoolboy Curling Championship in 1950. By attending the 2006 World Men’s Curling Championship, I think I have completed the circle.

New CEO for Canadian Curling

Here he is... the new man with one of the most important jobs in the sport of curling. And we’re not sure he’s ever curled.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. Particularly given the images of his predecessor sprawling across the ice in a long-ago promotional video, which is just now starting to sprout near and far across the web.

Relative unknown Greg Stremlaw of Niagara Falls, Ontario (above) is the new Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Curling Association.

The 36-year old will assume his duties on October 9, replacing Dave Parkes, who retired in a cloud of controversy in May after a 19-year CCA career.

Currently living in Cambridge, Ontario – presumably not far from the Galt Classic – Stremlaw was most recently the CEO and Executive Director of the Chicopee Ski & Summer Resort in Kitchener.

Prior to that, he worked as Director, Sport Services & Bobsleigh/Luge for the Calgary Olympic Development Association (CODA) from 1996-2002, most importantly as Race Chairman/Race Director for all international World Championship and World Cup events in the winter sports of Skeleton, Luge and Bobsleigh.

“I am excited to be involved in helping take the CCA in a new direction,” said Stremlaw. “We want to have a vision of excellence, a vision that includes running this sport as a business with sound financial practices, teambuilding, grassroots development and capturing the minds of the youth in this great country.

“I look forward to being part of many significant curling events in the coming years, especially the 2010 Winter Olympics in our own backyard. It is imperative that we use these events to help catapult the sport of curling to yet another level. I genuinely look forward to being a part of that process along with the entire CCA team.”

Stremlaw’s appointment was ratified unanimously by the CCA Board of Directors at a recent meeting, with Board members Graham Prouse, Georgina Anderson, Fran Todd, CCA Vice-President Beth Sullivan and CCA past president Donna Duffett leading the CEO Search Committee, working in conjunction with executive search firm Ray & Berndtson.

Sportswoman of the Year?

The World Curling Federation is reporting that 2007 World Women’s Curling Champion skip Kelly Scott and/or her team has been selected as a finalist for the 2007 Sportswoman of the Year Award, as presented by the U.S.- based Women’s Sports Foundation.

The awards – one individual and one team – are decided by online public voting, and Scott is up against Justin Henin (Tennis), Lorena Ochoa (Golf), Sanya Richards (Athletics) and fellow Canadians Danielle Peers (Wheelchair Basketball) and the legendary Hayley Wickenheiser (Ice Hockey).

Voting closes this Friday, August 31, at midnight so head to the website and add your vote for curling!

The winners will be announced in October at a gala dinner at New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria.

Carmen of Curling

Carmen Schäfer is the new third for double Olympic silver medallist Mirjam Ott of Switzerland, and her image is splashed across last week’s Blick magazine in rather flourishing fashion.

Have a nice weekend, folks ...

Scottish Washer Tossing weekend

Scotland is in the news today on a few fronts.

First, September’s massive national Curlathon fundraiser has been boosted by a big-name challenge match.

Secondly, there’s a pile of neat stuff posted at Curling Today, from the steady progress of a new Gogar Park facility to a very cool look at the coolest place to curl at – and not once but twice, in back-to-back weeks next month – Madrid, in Spain.

Speaking of that blog, The Scottish Curler’s Bob Cowan will celebrate his 60th birthday this Saturday evening at Greenacres, and it’s a shame TCN must decline its invitation. According to the agenda, the evening looks promising:

7:00pm – Guests arrive
7:15pm – Scottish Washer Toss Championship and other assorted nonsense
8:00pm – Buffet
8:30pm – Scottish Washer Toss Final
8:45pm – Awards
9:00pm – ABBAMANIA
11:59pm – Carriages

Happy Birthday, Bob!

Finally, the following weekend sees a special golf junket – På tur med Curlinggutta (Part II) – featuring a pile of Norwegian curlers (led by Pål Trulsen) and of course the host Scot of choice (noted curler and hotelier Hammy McMillan). Also along for the ride last year was the sole North American invitee, jolly Tim Wright of Duluth, Minnesota.

Here, deep from the unpublished archives of The Curling News, is Wright’s heavily edited report from last year’s event (photo shows Hammy, Pål and Tim a year ago). It’s fair to guess that this month’s edition should be equally amusing ...

The Team Trulsen golf outing took place at the North West Castle in Stranraer, one of several first-class hotels owned and operated by the McMillan family. Hammy was our host for the weekend, and defied his reputation and spent most of the weekend working, although he was able to sneak away for a pint after hours.

The golf outing itself was designed for the Norwegian Olympians to offer a weekend of thanks for their sponsors and supporters - Hammy and Pål set it up on their plane ride back from Duluth last March, after surviving a weekend as House of Hearts celebrities. Apparently they needed a token American so I was invited. I hesitated a bit when, four days before my flight was to leave the UK, a terrorist plot was foiled... but Pål assured me flying was much safer than golfing with 20 drunk Norwegians. I couldn’t argue that logic.

I entered the tourney knowing one Norwegian word - Skol - which I used frequently. I told my fellow golfers the only English word they needed to learn was “gimme.”

When we arrived for the first match, I was assigned the honorary first shot in the first flight, so I went in to pay for my golf cart (or buggies as they call them in Skotland) and drove up to the first tee. 20 Norwegians looked at me in astonishment as most had never heard of golfing with a limo. Once I explained that the cart wasn’t necessarily to avoid walking or carrying the clubs, but was in fact equipped with four slots to carry your beverages - there was a mad rush for the clubhouse and every group thus had a buggy.

Other North American golfing customs were quickly enjoyed as I taught them how to save steps and bend the rules to one’s advantage. If you haven’t figured it out yet, we were better curlers than golfers. 36 holes later the organizing committee determined the winners. I still haven’t figured out how they score over there - some combination of the Stapleford System with handicaps built in – but it didnt matter, it was a blast. Skol!

More silliness

Last week we showed you some bizarre big-budget curling – er, stuff – and now there’s more.

@Home – the old branding of Rogers internet service in Canada – is still going strong overseas, as evidenced by this Dutch commercial, which boasts both a curling and crime angle.

Just what is that under the ice?

Sub-Zero Sweepers

What the heck, you say?

Prepare yourself accordingly, and click here.

If your browser blocks all the vids on the downloads page, you can check out some of them here.

Comments welcome.

Big Brother Curling

Question of the day: which TV show is credited – or perhaps blamed? – with being the first “Reality” show? Survivor? The Real World? This forgotten oldie?

Big Brother must rank up there, and now the veteran CBS timewaster has become the first to send their contestants curling, as it happened back on week two of this eighth edition.

A modified version of curling, you would think? Definitely (photo courtesy CBS). You can watch the full segment here.

Ah, YouTube. What would we do without you?

For certain, it would be a lot tougher to find things like this clip from New Zealand’s recent outdoor curling spiel (not to forget this one of the Kiwis lunching) ... and this look at the tricky ice conditions the Aussies face on a daily basis ... plus these peeks (one and two) at the World Curling Federation’s Level 1 Technical course in Füssen, Germany (that’s Canadian Brian Rice doing the lecturing) ... and this TV news glimpse of arena curling in Omaha, Nebraska... nor would we easily find vid from Atlantic Canada’s famed Whitecap summer curling camp, available at this user’s page.

Anything else going on? Well ...

• Turns out it was an Ottawa curling ice technician who brought down Canada’s most wanted man this week ...

• Another young curler has died in a tragic accident, this time in Tillsonburg, Ontario ...

• Remember the big hoo-haw over Scotland’s – sorry, Great Britain’s – team selection process for the last Olympics? British Curling has now announced the plan for 2010 ...

• Here’s yet another TV report (including video) of the outdoor Kiwi curlfest ...

• Don’t miss Pfeif on The Curling Show, he’s always a great guest ...

• Team Jennifer Jones has a new sponsor, and it’s a current CCA partner. Former sponsor Whirlpool, which has been a dynamic supporter of women’s sport – including curling – for years, is now reported to be scaling down their involvement ...

• Wisconsin’s Pardeeville Curling Club president has received a well-deserved state honour
(defending U.S. women’s champion skip Deb McCormick is the club VP, by the way) ...

• TSN was quick to pick up our exclusive from July 25 ...

• and finally, there’s a big sale underway at Ishida Sports, including Mizuno carling pants!

Kevin Martin Simpson

Introducing the latest Simpsons character, above... KMart Simpson. Hurry hard!

Have you tried The Simpsonizer yet? Tons of fun. Instead of using one of our own mugs (how tempting it was to do this to Larry Wood, or perhaps Teri Lake!) we decided to toss the famed Alberta skip into the online device, and lo and behold – here he is.

The Simpsons Movie, of course, won the box office sweepstakes last weekend, and the Simpsonizer website is just one of many other nifty cogs in a veritable movie marketing machine.

All this with apologies to the real KMart, of course. We’re confident he has a sense of humour; after all, it wouldn’t be smart to rile up an Old Bear ...

Quebec curling heroes break up

We’re still in Quebec, following last week’s news of the first-ever Grand Slam coming to the provincial capital in late November.

Another big story is the breakup of the 2006 Canadian championship team skipped by Jean-Michel Ménard (photo by CurlingZone) which also won silver at the Worlds in Lowell, Mass.

Ménard told his mates – François Roberge, Éric Sylvain and Maxime Elmaleh – of his decision shortly after season’s end, and then made the four-hour jaunt to Quebec City a week later (Ménard lives near the Ontario border) to explain his decision in person.

“I know they were kind of disappointed after I announced it,” said Ménard. “But maybe now with some time passing, they understand it was a good decision.”

Ménard said the team’s major mistake came after their surprising Brier win in 2006, which had capped two strong seasons of beating high-profile teams despite a limited tour schedule. The major one was a killer: they hadn’t developed any concrete aspirations.

“As a team we did not define a goal,” said Ménard. “We didn’t take the time at the start of summer to do it.

“We had a rough year, we didn’t really play very well. We didn’t have the fire in our eyes that we had before; that’s what made us a tough team to beat.”

The skip also pointed to a statistic which in his mind proved to be critical.

“We finished 0-18 against teams ranked in the top 15 of the World Curling Tour,” Ménard said. “We had been about .600 against those guys before.

“That’s not a bad season, that’s a horrible season.”

Ménard now has Sylvain at second, alternate Jean Gagnon at lead, and five-time Quebec provincial junior champions skip Martin Crete at third. Crete holds the record for skip victories at the national juniors, having worn the light blue from 2003 through 2007.

“He’s probably the best junior player to come out of the province in the last 10, 12 years,” said Ménard. “He throws big, big weight, and he’s training really hard for the sweeping.”

Ménard has a known quality in Sylvain, but also thinks Gagnon – who took a few years off to spend more time with his family – is no slouch.

“He’s the guy I basically replaced on Frankie (Roberge’s) old team,” said Ménard. “He’s probably the best lead in the province and he’s been sitting on the bench.”

Ménard also keeps coach Michel St. Onge, giving him four of the old six-man squad.

Roberge and Elmaleh, meanwhile, have hooked up with Montréal skip François Gagné.

The two squads have suffered a CTRS points hit which will probably allow the remnants of Team Pierre Charette, now led by Martin Ferland, to claim the first of two spots in the Quebec Grand Slam offered to local teams. Charette, of course, has re-teamed with Guy Hemmings and with ex-Brad Gushue castoff Jamie Korab at lead, Charette has a pile of CTRS points too. He might grab the second spot, depending upon how the Asham World Curling Tour labels his squad: Quebec or non-Quebec? That is the question.

One thing is for certain: curling fans will never forget the rags-to-riches story of the 2006 Brier-winning team, which culminated in some of the best on-ice – and off-ice – victory celebrations in the history of the sport.

Grand Slam to Quebec

Make that le “Grand Chelem”...

One of the four Grand Slam of Curling events will take place in Quebec City Nov. 28-Dec 2, as announced this week at a glitzy news conference at the famed Chateau Frontenac.

Curl Quebec, one of the more dynamic member associations of the CCA, is heavily involved, as is Tourism Quebec, and of course the usual suspects: the Asham World Curling Tour and World Curling Players’ Association (that’s chief Paul Boutilier in photo), and series management company Insight Sports.

Check out Curl Quebec’s video coverage of the announcement via their curlquebec.tv portal, located here.

For a nifty promotional video, go to the .tv mainpage.

The $100,000 tourney will be contested at the Pavillon de la jeunesse, part of ExpoCité. The Pavillion recently underwent a massive renovation and now boasts 5,000 seats plus a modern design update, which Boutilier said “made it (Quebec hosting) a very easy decision.”

“This is a golden opportunity to showcase the sport of curling in Quebec,” said Curl Quebec honcho Marco Berthelot.

“We hope to seize this opportunity to demonstrate that Quebeckers are poised to host a successful major curling event.”

This is Quebec’s first big event since the 1988 Chicoutimi Brier, the site of Pat Ryan’s first of two back-to-back Brier wins, which also featured the infamous “Hritzuk” shot in the last end of the championship final.

According to press reports, the planned team lineup includes two Quebec teams, two international teams – once from France – and a U.S. team.

It’s about time a major was hosted in Quebec, and the Grand Slam was a logical place for Curl Quebec to look, following the disappointment of the failed – and controversial – 2008 Scotties bid. Reports say Quebec City is also pushing to host a national championship in the Olympic year of 2010.

Finally:

• Nova Scotia is looking for a High Performance coach ...

• Is Kevin Martin really “the people’s champion”, as this fellow has gushed?

Bacardi: time to step up

RED ALERT: if you are on the organizing committee of a popular cashspiel and are considering an online entry system, be very aware of the snafus that have entangled athletes and organizers out in Brampton, Ontario.

It’s an ugly situation that will certainly be rectified in future, but will that future include this fall’s event? Time will tell.

By the way, the Bacardi is a fine tournament celebrating its 25th anniversary this fall. But... in the words of a recent champion, it has rarely dished out winnings much beyond what the entry fees bring in.

Think about that.

This leads one to ask: what exactly is it that Bacardi is giving to the event – or perhaps the club? – each year that deserves title sponsorship of this tournament?

It’s one thing to contribute small budget line items to the local market – Brampton is Bacardi’s home – but after 25 years, The Curling News says its high time that this world-class distiller stepped up to the plate and put more hard dollars into the prize purse.

Lots more stuff today, so get your fingers ready:

• The Asham World Curling Tour (AWCT) schedule has been released, and is available through the Tour website as a PDF download. Click away ...

• New Zealand is experiencing a nasty winter – barely a squall by Canadian standards – which means joy for curlers, as their outdoor “Grand Match” was able to run for the first time in six years. An ice layer of about 25cm on the Idaburn Dam was enough to support over 250 players and 500 stones. Here’s a preview story; here’s one report, with video, from NZ TV 3; and here’s not one but two more print tales.

Days earlier, the Baxter Cup was also battled for in an outdoor theatre, with 88 curlers taking part.

Those Kiwis are pumped!

• Atlantic Canadian curler Helen Robbins can hold her head high today; she has been awarded the Order of Prince Edward Island ...

• Ed Lukowich is in the hotseat on the latest episode of The Curling Show ...

• Curling coaches looking for a challenge might want to consider the largely desert nation of Turkmenistan, which plans to field its first Winter Olympic team at the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia.

“We will certainly take advantage of the Russian invitation to take part in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, for which it is necessary to begin the appropriate preparations already today,” President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov recently told the official newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan.

The president did not say in which events the Central Asian nation — an oil-rich ex-Soviet republic — might compete, but he has ordered his cabinet to draft proposals for participation in the Games.

Turkmenistan has not won an Olympic medal since becoming an independent nation after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. The last time an athlete from the nation won a medal was at the 1964 games when a Turkmen kayaker was part of the champion Soviet team.

Summertime temperatures in Turkmenistan, north of Iran, can reach 50 degrees Celsius (120 Fahrenheit), and snow is rare in winter.

Sochi, of course, defeated Pyeongchang and Salzburg in a recent IOC vote to host the 2014 Games ...

• Remember our online teaser about this new CBC-TV show, and the feature that followed in a print issue last season? It looks like the curling promo shot in Newmarket, Ontario earlier this year has been appended by new scenes shot in nearby Richmond Hill, will indeed become part of a show episode, according to this Toronto Star story; “We have an episode this season with Muslims trying curling, which demonstrates that we are all one, all Canadians,” says show producer Mary Darling ...

• AWCT followers will note a new spiel in the Alberta town of Brooks, namely the Cactus Pheasant Classic which debuts this November, and with a hefty prize purse of $70,000, which is enough to attract KMart, for starters ...

• Over in Ottawa, the Carleton Heights club is in the news, both good and bad. The latter comes from graffiti splashed onto the club over the weekend, which police are investigating. Good is the news that the club is exploring interest in a summer (September) league, so if you are interested, click here and follow up ...

• In Winnipeg, new signage is up which rebrands the Asham Arena, aka the Valour Road CC, as the new Thistle CC (confused yet?) which of course saw its original facility destroyed in a fire just over a year ago ...

• Saskatchewan’s greatest curling soap opera – concerning the long-proposed and debated Moose Jaw Multiplex – took another negative turn yesterday, with curling now apparently on the outside looking in ...

• Finally, we wonder what Chris Daw, featured here last week, would think of the comments posted on this wheelchair curling website (7/12/2007)? Probably not much, as Daw suffered a death in the family over the weekend, forcing him to leave that training camp in Edmonton ...

Free curling game download

The Merscom PC curling videogame Curling 2006 (screenshot above) is available now, for a limited time only, as a free download.

Click here to grab it.

This giveaway saves you U.S. $19.95, but as of this 9:15am ET posting, you had just under 18 hours to act.

Off you go, then!

Will Canada lose its gold medal champion?

Curling continued to kick ass this week with the announcement of yet another official 2010 Olympic coin – make that Paralympic coin – dedicated to the sport; the second of three released since February.

This time, its Paralympic wheelchair curling that gets the honour, officially released on Tuesday at a news conference featuring Chris Daw, the skip of Canada’s Paralympic gold medal champion team (photo). See a TV report here, a print report here and the news release here.

Daw is a fiercely patriotic and powerful fellow adorned with Canuck tattoos who makes regular speaking engagements across Ontario. He offers much as a multi-sport Paralympic and world championship athlete who has competed in wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby aka Murderball, wheelchair athletics and sledge hockey. He’s been caught on camera doing wheelchair motocross, bungee jumping off a cliff, parasailing and even scuba diving.

He was also instrumental in hooking the Canadian Curling Association up with the Canadian Paralympic Foundation and the Toronto Stock Exchange earlier this year, in a landmark deal which will see the CCA set up a new Office of Inclusionary Services – catering specifically to disabled curlers in categories including wheelchair and blind – via a tidy TSX donation of $400,000.

It’s no surprise then to hear rumours, now circulating, that he is being wooed by rival nations – more than one, we hear – who want him to uproot from Canada and set up shop overseas.

What is stunning, and hard to believe, are the rumours that he is seriously considering the offers.

Daw knows his stuff, and on the curling ice, he can make shots no other wheelchair curler can. We know this, personally, as we have seen him lead his squads to exhibition game victories over able-bodied teams skipped by Glenn Howard and Mike Harris among others.

Daw spoke to The Curling Show a year ago, but there were no hints about any post-Turin troubles, just a nonchalant “we’re looking forward to 2010.”

What has changed in a year, to make Daw consider leaving Canada, and lend his considerable expertise to a rival country in advance of the 2010 Paralympics in Vancouver?

The very question makes it easy to disbelieve the rumours, but in reality the exportation of Chris Daw would simply follow the able-bodied script, which has seen a multitude of Canadian curlers oversee national team coaching and/or development programs on four continents. So while Canadians would grow nervous, the rest of the curling world would improve their growth and skill set in what is the fastest-growing disabled sport on the planet.

• Oich, some great news from Scotland regarding the famed but decrepit Thomson Tower, where the rules of curling were first drafted over 200 years ago; check out Curling Today and The Scotsman for the details ...

• Hold on, Edmonton. Just a day after Terry Jones declared that Canada’s 2009 Olympic Trials are a cinch for the City of Champions, the requisite denials have appeared in various CanWest media outlets. The latest sees rival Kamloops talking tough through its local blat, with former Strauss Canada Cup chair Norm Daley offering that Edmonton’s media reports might indicate “ a little fear on their part or something” and Kamloops city director Byron McCorkell suggesting that “it would appear” Edmonton is running scared ...

• Save a prayer for Cathy King and family, as they mourn the mysterious death of older brother Robbie King, a two-time Canadian junior champ (and world junior finalist) in 1974-75 ...

• So, do you agree that a sport like “curling” has significantly less exposure than “competitive gaming”? ...

• Brad Gushue castoff Jamie Korab is enjoying new life without his ex-skipper. He’s now got two teams – one skipped by Quebec’s Guy Hemmings – and two hometown landmarks – a road and a school gym – named after him ...

• According to the Globe and Mail, former National Post curling columnist Adam Daifallah has created the Conrad Black Fan Club on the popular Facebook social networking website. Black, a Canadian-slash-British publishing maven, is awaiting a Chicago jury’s verdict on fraud and racketeering charges. Daifallah is a youthful Conservative architect and writer, when he’s not eyeballing the Quebec curling scene for yours truly (former journalist our foot) ...