Official curling thread

[ZuWo]

Team USA defeats Switzerland and will play Canada in the 3 vs 4 game tomorrow. Switzerland will finish 5th, which is a solid result but nothing more. Maybe Team Ott would have been a stronger representative, but that's futile now.
I wish team USA the best of luck, but I think Scotland, Sweden and Canada are just too strong for them.

[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)

[Poirot]

In the semi-final against Scotland Horman tried a double take out on her last rock to win but she missed it and lost. Another year win no gold medal for Canadian women.

[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!

[afleitch]

WHOOOOOOOOO!

[Poirot]

Ha! I think Scotland won.

[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.

[ZuWo]

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.

[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.

[ZuWo]

Time to bump this thread as the 2014 Ford World Women's Championship is approaching. Very prominent top teams (Muirhead, Wang, Ott come to mind) can't participate because of the Olympics so this year's world championship is considered to be a bit of a b-event. Therefore, I expect that Canada and Sweden (and maybe Russia), which are going to send their best teams to Saint John, will be the teams to beat.

Switzerland is going to be represented by Team Feltscher, which really isn't very strong. Last time Feltscher made it to the world championship she finished 10th. These two rocks were perhaps the most memorable ones she played during that event.

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

[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).

[ZuWo]

I don't want to sound too negative already but the Latvia-Scotland and Korea-Denmark games are not exactly indicative of great curling: Scotland is behind against a weak Latvian team. Korea gives up a steal of three and then scores four in the next end (that's what you would expect in club curling but not at this level). This makes me slightly more optimistic about Switzerland's chances but at the same time I will be extremely surprised if Canada and Sweden aren't the teams that will win gold and silver.

[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.

[ZuWo]

I'm watching the final ends of the Switzerland-China game and I'm not thrilled. The Swiss front end as well as the vice skip don't make a lot of shots and heavily rely on skip Feltscher who has had to rescue the entire team several times. Fortunately, as you said China is awful so that might be enough.

Switzerland is going to play Canada tonight. Unless a miracle happens even a decidedly average performance by the Homan squad should suffice.

[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.

[ZuWo]

That Canada-Switzerland game is really perplexing but since it's the result that matters I like what I see!

[Hatman 🍁]

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

[ZuWo]

The round robin is almost finished and the standings look as follows:

Canada (Homan) 8 1
Switzerland (Feltscher) 8 1
Russia (Sidorova) 7 2
Sweden (Sigfridsson) 7 2
Korea (Kim) 6 3
China (Liu) 6 3
USA (Pottinger) 5 4
Scotland (Barr) 2 7
Czech Republic (Kubeskova) 2 7
Latvia (Regza) 1 8
Denmark (Dupont) 1 8
Germany (Lehmann) 1 8

The fact that Canada, Sweden and Russia are still in contention for the playoffs is hardly surprising. To my great delight, however, the Swiss team has been really strong and is now a serious contender for a medal. I'm glad to see that the philosophy of the Swiss Curling Association, which is to establish a framework that makes it possible for several teams to develop rather than to fund a single "national team", finally seems to be paying off. The example of Scotland shows very clearly what can happen if the entire focus is on only one national team and all the other squads are basically irrelevant.

China and Korea have been playing quite well, too. I didn't have them on the radar at all. Denmark and Germany are a huge disappointment, though. And the USA ... well, the future for American curling doesn't look very bright at the moment.

[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.

[ZuWo]

So the 1 vs. 2 game ended with a win for Canada. I can't blame the Swiss team. Their performance was solid overall but the Canadian girls were better and simply made the big shots. Kreviazuk's triple takeouts in crucial moments (I think she played two of them) were simply amazing and Homan proved what an excellent skip she is when she drew to the four-foot against three Swiss rocks twice.
Canada now progresses to the gold medal game and Switzerland gets another chance against the winner of the Russia-Korea game. But unless the Canadian foursome falters under pressure in the final I don't see how they could lose. They are just too consistent and precise at the moment.

[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

[ZuWo]

The Swiss defeat the Koreans and are going to face Team Homan tomorrow! I take back all the negative words and thoughts I said and had about Team Feltscher. I don't think they can realistically expect to beat Canada - after all, Binia Feltscher just said in the post-game interview that "Canada is probably the better team but we will try" - but a lot can happen during a single game of curling.

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

Had Tirinzoni represented Switzerland instead of Feltscher I could say something similar now.

[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.

[ZuWo]

Highlights from the semi-final game between Switzerland and Korea

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.

On the other hand, the Homan squad won the Canadian championship twice in a row and is already quite experienced despite being a very young team. I mean, from a purely Swiss-centric point of view I naturally hope that Homan and her team will be nervous and make some mistakes tomorrow but I wouldn't bet on it.

[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).