Buy this game. Seriously.

Dadoo Games released “Curling 2010″ for the XBox360 this week– the full version is available for the amazing price of $3.00! It is downloaded through the XBox Live service directly from your game console, or through your web browser by following this link. The amount of bang for your buck is tremendous.  You can see screenshots from the game here, and videos here.

I’ve spent a bit of time with Curling 2010 since its release, and I can confidently say this is the best curling video game available for any console system today. Rather than make a winter sports compilation, this game is focused solely on curling, and it is clear that Dadoo thoroughly understands curling. In the basic match game, the standard competition rules, including the free guard rule, are in effect (although the number of ends per game, number of stones per end, Canadian versus international free guard rule, etc. are all changeable parameters– in fact you can set up a game with up to four teams, and four stone colors!).

The setting is an outdoor curling sheet, set in a valley surrounded by snow covered spruce. There are no cartoon characters or avatars to control; you basically act as skip and set a hovering broom to set the aiming point. You also set the weight with the left and right triggers, and turn with the X and B buttons. Once you have everything set to your satisfaction, press the A button to release the stone. Sweeping is accomplished by alternating left and right trigger buttons as the rock glides down the sheet.

(Click the “more. . .” link below for the rest of the review.)

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From YouTube via zolson1404

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.

Chinese skip Fengchun Wang and German skip Andreas Kapp sweep in the house in draw 2.

We made it back to Duluth after watching the first three draws of the 2008 World Men’s Curling Championship in Grand Forks, ND.  I sure wish we could have stayed all week– it was curling heaven.  The meticulously prepared ice set against the opulence of the Ralph Engelstad Arena served as a fitting stage for an event featuring the best curlers in the world.  Click the “more” link below to see a ton of pictures from the trip. . .

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Help! (1965)

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!”

Men With Brooms – Starring Paul Gross and Leslie Nielson ( 2002 )

If you miss Paul Gross because of his magical performance as a Canadian Mounty in Due South (which I do), here’s your chance to see him once again. He stars in and also directs this rare movie about curling. One of his costars is Leslie Nielson. No, there aren’t any broom to the groin shots or gratuitous slapstick. Nielson plays Gross’s father who also coaches this group of relatively ragtag misfits into becoming a rink in this small town setting. They go on to play for the “Golden Broom” after previously chasing this title ten years earlier and quitting because of their ethics or lack thereof.

The movie is somewhat predictable and follows the premise of the Karate Kid where an untrained, unfit group takes on the flashy, well funded antagonist. And when you feel that all hope is lost, Nielson exclaims, “you want an easy ride? Go play a bonspiel for the gutless!”

All in all, the movie is well done. Some cheesy special effects, but that’s to be expected when it isn’t directed by Spielberg. There are some very funny lines and the movie moves along well enough that your attention span doesn’t get “bumped out of the house”. The characters are likable, the acting is likable and the end result is a little predictable. But who cares, someone made a movie about curling. That’s just fantastic!!

I give the movie 6 out of 8 stones in the house.

Mud Duck

If you have or find any other movies about curling, let me know.

Alternate title: Broken Brooms, Shattered Lives

Last year midway through the curling season, I upgraded from a wood handled broom to a fiberglass Reactor 2 by Olson Curling Supplies. It is a great broom– it is very light and quick, and the narrow head makes it easy to brush right next to the rock. The best part of this broom though is the handle: Instead of being round, it has flat edges, more like a hockey stick than a traditional broom handle. This makes the broom much easier to grip tightly and put muscle into the sweep.

My Reactor2 in happier times

I was very happy with this broom. I think it made me a much more effective sweeper, and it was reasonably priced (purchased on Amazon.com for ~$65). Prior to sunday night, I would have given the fiberglass Reactor 2 a solid B+.

What happened sunday night? In about the fifth end, while delivering a stone, the business end of my broom broke off. Yes, broke off. I was watching my shot and didn’t notice it, until a player on the opposing team picked the broom head off the ice and handed it to me. I was shocked, obviously. Why would the broom snap during a delivery? There must be a lot more force on it while sweeping. I pondered this as I grabbed a club broom from the barrel to continue the game (we lost).

Broken brooms, shattered lives. The broken end of the screw is visible at the end of the handle. It was screwed in to the deep nut connected to the swivel. The whole connection was encased in hard plastic.

I took a closer look at the busted broom after the game. There is a threaded rod which secures the handle into the the swiveling head, and a hard plastic cowling around the connection. It looks like the threaded rod snapped one or two threads deep, leaving only the plastic to hold it together. I probably broke the rod while sweeping, and then side loaded the fracture during my delivery, resulting in broom decapitation.

I don’t think I’m particularly tough on brooms, so I’m attributing this catastrophic failure to either a design flaw or a defect in the steel threaded rod. Either way it knocks my grading of the Olson Fiberglass Reactor2 down to a B-. This was a great broom that never let me down, until it did, and then it did big time.