Live from the 1pm saturday draw of the Duluth International Bonspiel. On sheet 8, Seppo Sormunnen battles Sheriff Ross Littman to stay in the A bracket.

Steven Colbert meets John, Jason, Jeff, the other John, and the Cute One at the Plainfield Curling Club in New club for some heart to heart talk and some head to head competition.

There is a lot going on in the Northland this weekend:

Friday night (tonight!) at the Duluth Curling Club, Ken and Joanne Docteur host a one night mini-spiel named “The Fun Night Before Christmas“. The event begins at 6pm and is open to the public. Ken and Joanne began these mini-spiels two years ago, and they are a lot of fun– last year’s event coincided with the Women’s Frozen Four (that’s hockey or something?), and the Harvard Pep Band came out to try curling– and they brought some great exposure for the DCC back to the East Coast. So if you have friends who are curious about curling and the off-ice action after the curling is done, bring them down!

Curl Mesabi is hosting the Super One Shootout, a major cash-spiel with a $20,000+ purse. The Super One Shootout is part of the World Curling Tour, and is attracting some big names to Eveleth– the DCC is well represented. 2008 Coach of the Year Phil Drobnick is organizing the event. The first draw is 2pm Friday, and the final is 3pm Sunday. You can watch live scoring at this link.

One big time curler who would probably be in Eveleth this weekend if he wasn’t otherwise occupied is last year’s national champion Craig Brown. He and his team are currently participating in the Continental Cup, an event modeled on golf’s Ryder Cup, in which teams from North America compete against teams from the rest of the world in a variety of curling formats. The games started yesterday, and North America had a few good games: Craig Brown beat Scotland’s David Murdoch 6 to 3, and Kevin Martin of Canada delivered a bruising to Fengchun Wang of China, winning 10-1 (could that be payback for this game?)
The World is currently way ahead of North America in points, leading 36 to 18, but there are a lot of games left. If you want to stay updated on the scores, CurlTV is probably your best bet.

And finally. . . Santa Spiel?

Friday (and sub-zero air) has arrived in the Twin Ports. Anything going on?

On Saturday the Duluth Curling Club hosts their annual Mixed Doubles Bonspiel. This one-day event features two-person teams battling it out in the increasingly popular mixed doubles format. You can see a video demonstration of mixed doubles at this link.

Did you hear about the big storm headed to Duluth? One foot of snow? Yikes! If you are stuck inside, and your broadband connection isn’t knocked out by the weather, why not spend the weekend watching curling from the Great White North? Access to CurlTV is free with your membership to the Duluth Curling Club, and this weekend they are broadcasting live games from the Canada Cup qualifiers in Ottawa, Ontario.

Oh yeah, if your broadband connection is knocked out by Old Man Winter, remember that the Duluth Curling Club has free WiFi.

And finally, in case you missed it the first time, a little light hearted fun: Here is the video of the Fab Four curling in the Swiss Alps from the movie Help! Have a great weekend!

Brady and Christin Clark of Seattle, WA won the 2009 U.S. Mixed Doubles Championship in Two Harbors last weekend. They will go on to compete for the World Championship in Cortina, Italy in April.

Closer to home, the Broman rink won the main event in the USWCA All American Bonspiel at the Duluth Curling Club. Congratulations!

If you like curling, but don’t want to commit an entire weekend to being on the ice, there are a couple one-day bonspiels coming up at the Duluth Curling Club:

The USWCA All American Bonspiel is this Saturday (Dec. 6th).  The event has a pirate theme, which is very timely given recent events around the Horn of Africa.

Next Saturday, Dec. 13th, is the Duluth Mixed Doubles Bonspiel.  This new format features two players per team, one female and one male, who deliver five rocks per end after pre-placing one stone as a guard or counter.  The mixed doubles format is innovative, confusing, and growing in popularity.

If you want to learn more about mixed doubles and see it in action, head up highway 61 to Two Harbors this weekend to see the US Mixed Double Championship, which is drawing teams from all over the country.

By the way, have you looked at CurlDuluth’s bonspiel calendar?  You can find all these events and more, and if you want to add your event, contact me!

Little Mosque on the Prairie is a CBC show about Muslim residents of the fictional prairie town of Mercy. How much of their culture should immigrant communities and religious minorities shed in order to fit into a small Canadian town? And how much of town’s character should be allowed to change to reflect the new demographics? It plays like a classic fish out of water sitcom, but the subject matter is something that U.S. television wouldn’t touch.

I mention this because the curling episode has just been posted on YouTube. It features a cameo by Glenn Howard, and the prescient line, “Nobody wants to be in a bonspiel. Its something that happens to you.”

Here is part 1:

Part 2:

And the conclusion:

From YouTube via LittleMosqueSeason2.

Friday is here, which means many Twin Ports curlers will be heading to the Cystic Fibrosis Bonspiel at the Superior Curling Club. I heard they have a big field of teams signed up, so there could be some late nights and early mornings.

And, for those not Soup Town bound, here’s a video of kids curling at the Granite Curling Club in Seattle. Awww. . .

From YouTube via missamo80.

Final score: Craig Brown 6, Randy Neufeld 4.

On the women’s side, Krista MacCarville of Thunder Bay defeated Duluth’s Amy Wright in the final.

It is Craig Brown of Madison versus Randy Neufeld of Manitoba in the final of the 2008 Duluth Cash Spiel. After five ends, it is Brown up by one point, 4 to 3.

I am putting together a calendar of bonspiels and other assorted curling events in the Northland.  The link is at the top of the column to the right, or you can click here.  Let me know if I have overlooked anything, or if you want your event included.  You can email me at andy@curlduluth.com.

This weekend is the 7th Annual Lazy Days of Summer Bonspiel at the Rice Lake Curling Club.  I have heard nothing but good things about this bonspiel and the hospitality of the folks at Rice Lake.  According to the draw sheet, there are a number of Twin Ports teams signed up.  I wish I was going, but my two year old niece’s birthday takes precedence.

Good luck at the ’spiel!

I’m going to ride out the storm at the Last Chance Men’s Bonspiel in Hibbing, so no more posts until I get back– hopefully late on Sunday.  In the meantime, the World Championship scoring (courtesy of CurlCast) is at this link.

Duluth Ethan Meyers Rink took 2nd place in the main event at the Serrano bonspiel in Chisholm back on March 16. Congrats to the team – Ethan, Trevor Host, Anders Silverness, and Elizabeth Bushe -  they played a great spiel!

The 2008 House of Hearts had something for everyone. For teams lucky enough to lose in the first round of the playoffs Saturday, there was the DRanger Event. This was truly deranged curling. For the first end, teams played across the sheets– for example, the shooter delivered from the hack on sheet 1 to the house on sheet 2. Then there was a short game, played across two adjacent houses, then. . . Well, just watch the video: