Sunday, February 22, 2009

Jottings frm my (mental) notebook - Day 2

The rocks are "fresh out the box" new, a fact that pleases no-one, least of all the icemakers who are having to balance the extreme curl of new rocks against the need for fast ice.

Canada feel they have spotted a couple of "bad" rocks. What happens to them? Lead Chris Sobkowicz gets to throw them.

Coach Rea felt that China were allowed to get too comfortable throwing the same shots down down the same path. In Canada's one good end, where they scored 3,  Armstrong came in behind China's centre  line guard. He said as the team left for their hotel, "I've had better games." 
China will have learned how quickly a 4 shot lead can be threatened if you ignore corner guards and the other team executes as Canada did in the 8th end.

Team USA had brought software to do live audio broadcasts of their games. They were not allowed internet access, so had to abandon their plan. I spoke to a couple of Bell technicians who didn't think available bandwidth should be an issue. Obviously there is more at work here than meets the eye, but it is a shame when any opportunity to publicise the game and involve fans, is spurned.

Team USA Coach Brown told me this morning "Everyone in the curling world emphasizes the importance of all athletes following the 'Spirit of Curling.'

"In the same vein, only common sense would tell you in the "Spirit of the game," and for the promotion of Paralympic Sports and wheelchair curling, the WCF and VANOC should allow something as simple as a webcast.

"If they can't iron this out, they are clearly putting politics ahead of the Spirit of sport."

This won't be the last word, as I intend to see what can be done to allow this free publicity.

Italy, Canada's draw 3 opponents, arrived late the day before practice and skipped the social to catch up on rest. The looked flat in an opening loss to Germany, but scored a 5 ender against a very experienced Swedish skip in a 10-7 win.

That's it for now. See you live at 12.30 - the live blogging window is below this post.


Anonymous said...


Losing to Italy...come on

Chris Daw where are you!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Saw the mess. It didn't matter who was playing. It was a team against the conditions.

My guess is that the week is still young for Canada.