Official curling thread

[Hatman 🍁]

I know there are a couple of other curlers on the forum, so I thought I'd start a thread to discuss various curling things.

This week is the European Curling Championships in Sweden. Norway and Sweden are doing well as usual on the men's side, but the big surprise is how terrible Germany and Scotland are doing. The Cezechs have a good record, but I watched them play Sweden on Youtube earlier in the day, and their skip couldn't make a shot to save his life.

On the ladies side, the Russians are having a good tournament, and again what's up with Germany? I guess Andrea is getting too old...

[Hatman 🍁]

Germany is 0-5 in the men's. lol Are we going to see Russia qualify for the men's Worlds for the first time ever? They must've really been working on getting a good team for Sochi.

[Hatman 🍁]

Stupid sport or stupidest sport? Bowls on ice! lol

Oh Al, I've just lost a lot of respect for you...

[Hatman 🍁]

Well, curling has a history of being an elite sport. And, it certainly still is in Europe. So, I hope that's where your opposition lies.

Either that or it's an anti-Scottish thing.

[Hatman 🍁]

And Russia makes it to the Worlds for the first time ever in men's.  Their women's team is in the final.

Meanwhile in Canada, the Canadian Open is going on. Only one international team (Switzerland's de Cruz) due to the Euros. Kevin Martin is out due to injury. Nice to see Ottawa's John Morris skipping again

[Hatman 🍁]

Team Homan curls out of my club We were really glued to our tv screens that entire week. I've played against her in the past, they're a good team. They should win the Worlds, the usual good teams (Norberg, Ott) are absent.

What's disappointing is the junior women's, Canada's in 2nd last place right now. ugh... don't think we've ever been that low.

The Brier is interesting... everyone thought it would be Alberta, Ontario and Manitoba, but things are much more interesting.

Thanks for bumping this thread!

[Hatman 🍁]

That's amazing and somewhat funny because Tirinzoni, skip of the Swiss team, curls out of my club.

I certainly think the Canadian women have a good shot at winning gold. However, one big factor will be the ice conditions. It's the first time the world championships are held in Latvia and maybe this country has a few surprises in store ...

Remind me to heckle you when our club mates face off against each other.

[Hatman 🍁]

That's amazing and somewhat funny because Tirinzoni, skip of the Swiss team, curls out of my club.

I certainly think the Canadian women have a good shot at winning gold. However, one big factor will be the ice conditions. It's the first time the world championships are held in Latvia and maybe this country has a few surprises in store ...

Remind me to heckle you when our club mates face off against each other.

So they have a bronze medal match in curling?

Yeah; I don't get the joke...

[Hatman 🍁]

Ha. My club beat your club.

Homan's not been as good as she should be. I thought she'd be walking over the competition, but Sweden and Russia are doing quite well. For Sweden, there's life after Norberg, and Russia are just continuing from their Euro success.

[Hatman 🍁]

Switzerland has to win and the US has to beat Russia for your Swiss ladies to make the playoffs (well, in this cases a 3-way tiebreaker). If Russia wins, there's no tie breakers.

[Hatman 🍁]

I'm kind of shocked that we have this many people interested in curling.

Meh. It's mostly me and ZuWo.

[Hatman 🍁]

Switzerland beats Russia in the first tie breaker. You're still alive, ZuWo! SUI vs USA now.

[Hatman 🍁]

The US beat Homan in the round robin, so it will  be a tough game. It's not really fair, the US back end are both Canadians (McCormick was born in Saskatchewan and Brown LIVES in Oakville, ON)

[Hatman 🍁]

Great season from the girls from my club. Too bad they came up short.  They probably wont take the bronze game seriously, and will lose it unfortunately.

Hopefully they can win the Olympic Trials next Fall and claim Olympic gold in February!

[Hatman 🍁]

Congrats, Scotland. Even though it was a Scotland vs. Sweden final, I think a rivalry is going to start between Homan and Muirhead. Although, I believe they are good friends, so it wont be very heated.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Swedish team is very strong and if they manage to stay focused I expect them to win gold next year. You can't come in second all the time.

Pish posh. Canada is always the favourite; even if we haven't won in a while.

[Hatman 🍁]

(snip) Very prominent top teams (Muirhead, Wang, Ott come to mind) (snip)

http://www.curling.ca/2014worldwomen-en/category/team-information/

Or you know, the defending Olympic champions.

You're right though, Canada and Sweden are the only good teams there.

The US is represented for the first time by a team that didn't win the national championship thanks to a stupid rule change (based on points).

[Hatman 🍁]

The Swiss men's team (Michel) beat Canada's worlds team (Koe) in the quarterfinals of the National Grand Slam on Saturday. (Then went on to lose in the semi-final, but nevermind that). I wonder if that's indicative to what will happen in Beijing next month?

As for the women's worlds, Scotland looks awful, which is a shame. I thought there'd be more depth in that country. The US looks decent. China looks awful. Canada have been playing average. Hopefully that will be enough to win.

[Hatman 🍁]

Homan's team curled 90% at the Scotties, which was a stellar performance. So far after 2 games, they're curling 81%, which is average. Swiss curled 68% in their first game, yikes!

At the Worlds last year, Homan curled 83%, which was only good enough for a bronze. Sweden and Scotland both curled 85%.

At the Olympics, Jennifer Jones' team curled 86% which was also stellar. Sweden curled 80%, and the Russians had 82%, but had a terrible record.

[Hatman 🍁]

Must be that 1 hr time difference. Hard to adjust!

[Hatman 🍁]

Meh, not a bad result for the US. I wonder if Spatola would've done better.

Give the Scots some credit, they shouldn't have won the Scottish championship, their team should've been Fleming.

[Hatman 🍁]

Would be nice to see a World Championship banner in my club to go with the 2 world junior banners that John Morris won

[Hatman 🍁]

Homan has been known to choke in Finals before. Took her a long time to win an Ontario junior final before winning, she lost in her first Canadian junior final, and she lost in her only World Junior appearance. She also lost in her second provincial women's final. And then there was last year's worlds. In all of those events, she was arguably the best team.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Koreans have been a big surprise. I can see why the Asia-Pacific region wants to have a third team at the Worlds (they want to take away a team from North America, which would be insane in my opinion).

[Hatman 🍁]

Another option, give Canada an auto berth every year (with 90% of the world's curlers, we're like our own super continent for curling). And have the US play the third place pacific team.

OR, expand the tournament to 16 teams with 8 pools. There are still some mid level European teams we haven't seen much of lately like Italy, France (men's only), Finland and Norway (for women's only).