John Shuster and Team USA won the Championship at the Curl Mesabi Cashspiel in Eveleth last weekend, beating Andrew Wickman of Winnepeg 5 to 1 in six ends. Nice job.
And speaking of Olympians, Canada will be represented by Kevin Martin and Cheryl Bernard in Vancouver. Tough competition.
John Shuster and company are playing in the Grey Power World Cup of Curling this weekend in Mississauga (a.k.a. south Toronto), Ontario. This event is a prelude to Vancouver: The Olympic representatives from Scotland, Norway, China, Sweden, France, Germany, Denmark and USA’s Shuster will be competing against five Canadian teams, one of which will represent Canada in the Olympics.
Tonight (Thursday, Oct. 21) at 7pm CST, John Shuster takes on Newfoundland’s Brad Gushue in the first draw. You can see end-by-end scoring at this link. Good luck John!
Thursday morning update:
Good start, Team USA!
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?
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.
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.
There is a lot going on in the world of curling:
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 stopped by the Duluth Curling Club for the 11:30am Saturday draws, and the cashspiel was in full swing. I spoke briefly with organizers Tiffany Littman and Tony Laskey, and they reported good ice and good curling.
If you can’t come down to watch the matches, you can get live scoring for men’s and women’s at the Asham World Curling Tour website.
Click the “more” link below for a lot more pictures.
(more…)
The draws have been set for the Duluth Cashspiel this weekend. The first games are friday at noon (so if you’re in the one on one league and haven’t played yet this week, get your game in today!)
I’ll try to get down there and watch at least some of the games, so check back at curlduluth.com for updates. And if you’ve got pictures, videos, or news from the ’spiel that you’d like to share with the world, send them to me and I’ll post them ASAP. Good curling!
The 2007 Duluth Cash Spiel will be held the weekend of November 9-12, 2007 at the Duluth Curling Club. 32 men’s teams will play a triple knockout format, and 12 women’s teams will play round robin. The total purse is over $18,000!
Sign up– there are openings available. Contact the event chairs, Tiffany Litman or Tony Lasky, if you want to sign your team up or if you have any questions.
Click “more” below to see the event flyer.
The 2007 St. Paul Cashspiel has concluded, and the Disher rink from the Killarney Curling Club in Manitoba came out on top. John Shuster’s team missed the playoffs, but had a respectable 4 wins and 3 losses.
There is some good coverage on CurlTV.com.
Pete Fenson’s rink picked up their first win in draw 5 at the Home Hardware Masters of Curling competition in Waterloo Ontario. They’re now 1 win, 3 losses. According to curltv.com, their flight was postponed due to weather, and they had to delay a match.
Here’s a link to the standings:
http://www.curlingzone.com/forums/scores/masters06/standings.php
The Pete Fenson rink is taking on Deb McCormick in Whistler, BC in a match sponsored by Korbel Champagn. A classic battle of the sexes! Korbel logos are prominently embedded in the ice, with little champagn bottles in the house.
As I write this post, it is down to skip rocks in the eigth end with Fenson up by two, McCormick with the hammer. Thank you NBC for showing curling on TV– keep it coming!
Update: Celebrity captain Picabo Street threw the final rock for the McCormick rink, but couldn’t score. Final score: Fenson wins, 7 to 3.
I stopped by the Duluth Curling Club to watch some of the action at the 2006 LaBatt Cash Spiel. Wow, that is curling on a whole different level than league play. The highlight of the evening: While we were entering, John Shuster was leaving and he held the door for us.
You can check the updated scores here. Click the “(more…)” link below for lots more photos of the saturday afternoon draws of the 2006 LaBatt Cash Spiel.
This weekend the Duluth Curling Club will host the 2006 LaBatt Cash Spiel. It starts friday morning and continues through sunday, and will include rinks skipped by Olymic medalists Pete Fenson and John Shuster, and Olympian Cassie Johnson. This event will be a great chance to see some fine curlers compete for a $19,000 purse. I’ll post pictures and updates soon.
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