Official curling thread

[ZuWo]

Yes, the latter idea is insane. While seeming to lose touch with the world's best curling nations most US teams are still good enough to compete at the international level. Let them continue to play for the second (North) American spot against Brazil if need be.

But in general I also think that Asia/Pacific deserves a third spot at the world championship. China, Japan and Korea are now more or less credible contenders for the playoffs both in the men's and the women's tournaments and I don't see why we should regularly see teams like Latvia at the world championship. Thus, I guess it would be fairer if Europe gave up one of its spots.

[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).

[Hatman 🍁]

Choked

[ZuWo]

Team Feltscher scores three in the 8th and steals another triple in the 9th. A Swiss team without Ott is going to be world champion! Didn't see that coming. I feel sorry for the Canadian girls, though.

[ZuWo]

What a sad and beautiful picture at the same time!



Homan has a bright future ahead of her, no doubt. One thing she might have to change in the future, however, is to play more draws rather than one of her circus runback shots in critical situations. She obviously didn't have any other chance than attempting the runback in the 9th end but in the 8th it may have been wiser to try a draw and concede two to the Swiss. Of course, in hindsight that's easy to say for a club curler like myself.

What makes the Swiss victory all the more remarkable is that Feltscher and hear team have put a lot less effort and time into curling than most other teams at this level. Feltscher is a mother of two toddlers and the three other players work nearly full time all year long so they can't participate in many international tournaments. Also, the Swiss Curling Association has given considerably more financial support to Ott, Tirinzoni and Jäggi, who are all ranked above Feltscher on the money list. The only thing Feltscher's team had in their favour was that they hardly felt any pressure coming into the world's. They seem to be happy with regarding curling as their (very time-consuming) hobby and you could see on TV that they are simply having fun and enjoying themselves out there.

[Hatman 🍁]

A lot of countries didn't have the "A" team, of course. Interesting that the Swiss won with their "D" team. Canada could win the men's with their "D" team, but have had trouble in recent years winning the worlds even with their "A" or "B" teams.

Of course Homan has a bright future ahead of her. I could've said that 10 years ago when she won all those Bantam titles with pretty much the same team. Oh, and the Homan team all have full time jobs too! Canadian curlers don't get enough funding to not have jobs, and tour winnings aren't enough.

[ZuWo]

After having played together for seven years the members of Team Ott have decided to dissolve their rink. Lead Jeanine Greiner is going to take a break from curling for at least a year, second Carmen Küng wants to start a family so I guess this means she's out for the foreseeable future, third Carmen Schäfer indicated that she wants to continue to play competitive curling and skip Mirjam Ott is going to focus on her professional career but hasn't ruled out anything at this point.

Since two players left Team Jäggi just a few days ago I wouldn't be surprised to see Carmen Schäfer join the Jäggi rink. I don't think Team Tirinzoni, who is relatively new in its current composition, and Team Feltscher, who have just won gold, are interested in a major reshuffle right now. Schäfer could perhaps join forces with Alina Pätz, skip of another competitive women's team. Pätz was the alternate of Team Ott at some of the most recent international tournaments so they know each other well.

[Hatman 🍁]

There's going to be some big changes here as well. Allison Kreviazuk has left the Homan rink to be with her boyfriend who is on the Swedish team. She's being replaced by Joanne Courtney who currently plays for Val Sweeting (this year's Canadian runner-up).

Kevin Koe, Jeff Stoughton, Kevin Martin and probably Glenn Howard's rinks are all going to break up. Possibly more big teams.