Don’t forget to watch the broadcast of the Korbel Elite Challenge on NBC, Sunday at 1:30pm central time. This may be the only chance to watch curling on television for people who live south of the 49th parallel.
Speaking of Pete Fenson, his team is having a rough go in the “B” pool of The National, a Capital One Grand Slam of Curling event in Port Hawkesbury, NS. Current standings are here, and some of the games are being broadcast live over the internet by the CBC. You can watch them free at this link.
John Shuster’s rink will play in the 2007 Qualifier draw for the National Championship, in Waupaca, WI beginning January 3rd. You can see the draw sheets here; if there is live scoring, I’ll try to post the link.
The story so far: Ringo has a large ring stuck on his finger. Various bad guys want the ring. Naturally, the Beatles travel to the sheltering alps to hide out, and enjoy the local winter sports scene.
I think “Hey its a thingy– a fiendish thingy!” is British for “Hurry hard!”
Bemidji’s Pete Fenson won the final of the Mesabi Cash Spiel last weekend. There were money winners from Duluth, too, with John Shuster’s and Chris Plys’s teams making it to the quarter- and semi-finals, respectively. Good job, guys!
If anyone has pictures, send them to me and I’ll post them.
The big news in Minnesota is the Curl Mesabi Cash Spiel in Eveleth, MN. The first draws are Friday, and the championship games will be Sunday. This event is part of the Asham World Curling Tour, and if live scoring is available, it should be at this website. Some of the best teams in the area will be competing for share of a $14,000 purse, and the Duluth Curling Club will be well represented.
The Continental Cup’s first draws will be this evening. This event is the curling equivalent of golf’s Ryder Cup, with teams representing North America competing against European teams. There will be a variety of formats, including skins games, mixed doubles, singles, and team matches, and the winning continent will be based on the total accumulated points. Minnesota’s Todd Birr of Mankato and Wisconsin’s Debbie McCormick will join some top Canadian teams to represent North America. CurlTV.com will be broadcasting the games live, so if you’ve ponied up your $35 for a yearlong subscription, you can watch the games over the ‘net.
The Continental Cup is being held in Medicine Hat, Alberta this year– but will it move to Las Vegas in the future?
Speaking of European curlers, Sweden’s Peja Lindholm has up and quit professional curling. Your last opportunity to see him play may be Sunday, Dec. 23 at 2:30, when NBC will broadcast his exhibition match against Pete Fenson in the Korbel Elite Challenge.
I’ve written about curling video games for the Nintendo Wii before, but this one is in a class all its own. Michael Campbell, a student at Ravensbourgh College of Design and Communications in the United Kingdom, developed a prototype curling game using a projector and camera mounted in the ceiling, and a heavily modified Wii controller. Check out the description on his website, and click “play” on the video below for a demonstration.
You may notice a new photo up at the top– try hitting your “reload” button a few times. It should display a randomly selected image each time the site loads. I’m going to try to make some more changes to the look of www.curlduluth.com over the next few days, but my programming skills are a pretty poor, so if the site looks a little funky, bear with me. (And if anyone has any ideas about how to fix the page width problem, please let me know!)
If you’re in Duluth this weekend, there are a few happenings at the Duluth Curling Club:
Friday evening (today), the DCC hosts an Adults Only Curling Fun Night. Curling, dancing, and fellowship will be in order. The event is free, and more information is available at the DCC home page.
On Saturday, there will be a ladies spiel, a Dr. Seuss themed “The Grinch who Stole the All American Bonspiel”. The first draws are at 8:30am, and you can find more information here.
Scott sent me some pictures from last weekend’s mixed doubles bonspiel at the Duluth Curling Club. Looks like it was a lot of fun!
Mary holds the broom for Dave:
Mike and Bonnie sweep like mad:
Phil and Lucy line up a shot. (In this picture, you can see the two “placed” stones that start each end: The high yellow guard, and the red stone just back from the tee line. Both of the placed stones start on the center line. You can see a rundown of the rules of the mixed doubles format here.)
Happy barstools during Saturday night’s winter storm:
Monday’s Duluth News Tribune has a nice little article on the Duluth Curling Club, and includes a handy glossary of curling terminology and some history of curling in Duluth. The story would have been a little more appropriate a month or so earlier, but better late than never.
A mixed doubles bonspiel was held at the Duluth Curling Club this weekend. Mixed doubles is a new format for curling, in which teams of one male and one female compete. Each team plays six rocks per end, but the most unusual feature of mixed doubles is that the first rocks of each end aren’t thrown, but placed by hand prior to any throwing. One placed stone is a high center guard, and the other is on the button. A complete set of rules is found on the bonspiel’s website, and the World Curling Federation produced a YouTube video demonstration of the mixed doubles format which can be viewed by clicking this link. Unfortunately work and driveway clearing prevented me from getting down to the club to watch this event, so if anyone has pictures or fist hand accounts they’d like to share, email me!
Finally: Snow, and plenty of it! Here’s a photo showing the aftermath of last year’s epic storm. Why don’t the drifts in my driveway look like this? Thanks to Scott for the picture.
