It’s a red-hot curling weekend, folks
In this strange season—an Olympic one that’s been rattled by past and present Covid cancellations—tour talk now includes a world championship hosted in October. Honest.
WORLD WHEELCHAIRS
Wheelchair curling is consistently given short shrift by too many in the curling world. Usually hosted between February and April—except in Paralympic years—the pandemic has shoved the 2021 worlds into fall as an Olympic and Paralympic test event, hosted at the Ice Cube in Beijing.
Eleven teams will qualify for the Paralympics, but not directly through this 12-team competition. The 11 nations—after hosts China—with the most points accumulated from the 2019, ’20 and ’21 worlds will be confirmed for Beijing.
In today’s qualification round, Sweden mauled Scotland while the United States continued its impressive run of form by eliminating Canada.
Team USA, skipped by Matthew Thums and with third Stephen Emt, beat Canada 6-4 and will meet defending champions China in one semifinal. The Americans had been relegated in 2020, and won the World Wheelchair B-Curling Championship earlier this year to qualify for these worlds.
The Swedes, who trounced Scotland 10-0, will battle the Russian Curling Federation (RCF) in the other semi.
Yes, there is streaming coverage—because there is always streaming coverage—but this one is a little scary, folks. Be careful ... because you never know.
USA MIXED DOUBLES OLYMPIC TRIALS
Relocated to Eveleth, MN from sunny SoCal, the U.S. Mixed Doubles Olympic Trials are in full roar. Defending national champions Vicky Persinger and Chris Plys are tied with young guns Sarah Anderson and Korey Dropkin with 5-2 won/loss records.
Three additional pairs—Christensen/Shuster, the Hamilton siblings and Sinclair/Ruohonen—follow at 4-3.
The Hamiltons won the right to represent the U.S. at PyeongChang 2018, and finished 2-5. Sunday’s champions will be off to Beijing in February.
Yes, there is streaming coverage ... because there is always streaming coverage.
CANADIAN PRE-TRIALS
We will finally know the full lineup of men’s and women’s squads at the Canadian Olympic Trials after this weekend.
At the Pre-Trials direct qualifier in Liverpool, N.S. the storylines are many. Here’s a couple.
It’s always great to see Krista McCarville’s team doing it their way. This is the only squad in Canada’s high-performance program that doesn’t really play any cashspiels; they play at home in Thunder Bay’s Super League, and the occasional non-pandemic tournament. After taking all of 2020-21 off due to COVID-19, they’ve shown up at the Pre-Trials and as of Friday morning sit comfortably at 4-1.
The Ontario foursome is tied in the standings with provincial rival Jackie Harrison, while BC’s Corryn Brown is at 4-2.
In the other women’s pool, PEI’s Suzanne Birt is 4-1 while two teams are at 3-2; fellow youth Mackenzie Zacharias of Winnipeg and saavy veteran Sherry Anderson of Saskatchewan.
As he wrote a few weeks ago, blogstar Mike Fournier will be stepping back from the elite curling wars following these Pre-Trials—unless he grabs one of the men’s berths into next month’s Olympic Trials, of course.
Mike has been throwing front end stones, with Felix Asselin tossing last rocks. They just clobbered Jason Gunnlaugson 11-4 on Friday morning to move to 3-2 in their pool, while the Gunners dropped to 4-2. Tanner Horgan, who now skips Scott MacDonald’s old squad, is perfect at 5-0.
The other men’s pool sees a current tie between Tyler Tardi and Colton Flasch at 4-1, while ageless Glenn Howard lurks at 3-1.
Yes, there is streaming coverage ... because there is always streaming coverage.
THE FULL TORGER NERGÅRD
Perhaps I’m late to this party, but for some reason I am loving the full names displayed on the backs of Norway’s Team Steffen Walstad.
As this screen shot shows, it’s Torger Nergård, people, not just Nergård.
Imagine if they had player numbers on their backs as well, just like the old days (the mid-2000s)?
The squad ended up winning the Champéry Masters, by the way, over Italy’s Joel Retornaz. Yes, there was streaming coverage ... because there is always streaming coverage.
Speaking of the full Torger, you’d think that any news of his old skipper, Thomas Ulsrud, might make a few waves in the curling world. Well ... it was a virtual tsunami of reaction, particularly on the MetaFacebook, when we offered a mere congrats to the retired Legend of Pants for turning 50.
It’s pretty clear that if Ulsrud ever made a return to the ice, he’d still be an attraction.