The World is Changing. . . or changed

I don’t know why I’m still surprised whenever Canada loses in a world curling championship, but I am.
So when Jennifer Jones lost to Anette Norberg yesterday (or is it today?), in the 3-vs-4 game, it was news. I’m still living in the last century when Canada always seemed to win the worlds. Of course, it didn’t back then either, but it sure seemed like it.
Some day soon, we in Canada are going to realize that when a team like China, comes to Canada, spends six days a week, eight hours a day training and practicing, they are eventually going to catch up and pass our top players who have to put in long hours at the salt mine before they get to go and throw rocks. Actually, they’ve already done the catching up part and the passing will come soon at this rate.
***
By the way, I know it’s great to take the world championships all over the place and expose curling to new folks, but when no one bothers to show up what’s the point? Looking at James Bisson’s piece from Korea makes you wonder who in the WCF got the smart idea that one of curling’s biggest events should be held in a country where the sport is virtually unknown.
I mean, is the point of all this so some folks can stand up at the next WCF meeting and say, “Aren’t we great? We held a world championship in Korea.” Then they can all hold hands and sing “We Are The World.”

Questions after Day 1 at the WWC

Managed to catch the last few ends of the Canada vs. Switzerland match last night and a few questions went through my mind:

• What is with Mirjam Ott’s delivery? She fishtails to the left so badly that after she lets go of the rock, she has to paddle with her hand to stop from going way off to the side. You wonder how good she’d be if Lino DiIorio could work with her

• Why is it so many European teams have that strange release where as soon as they let go of the rock, they whip their arm back towards their body? It’s as if they’re trying not to get caught going over the hog line. Has anyone told them about the Eye on the Hog?

• Is Team Canada playing as well as it can? I thought the Canadian rink played well, not great but OK. Of course as I mentioned, I only saw a few ends. You can bet they don’t want to get into a position where they have to win eight in a row again.

• The Russian team is doing ads for Strauss? What up with that?

• When did the Czech Republic start curling?

Setting up the women's worlds

The women’s world championships get underway today and it’s a chance for Jennifer Jones to make up for that disaster in Paisley, Scotland in her last trip to the world championships. Not a stretch to say that event was probably the worst in the history of the world championships. There have been some pretty crazy world championships over the years, but that may take the cake and it’s hard to fault Jones for her poor performance there. Although the conditions were the same for everyone, that became not much more than a crapshoot and hardly a reflection of good curling.

To prepare for this week, Jones and her team spent a lot of time last week throwing rocks on the ice at the Brier, practicing on the arena conditions.

In the old days, any Canadian team would go into the world final as the favourite. I think Jones will do that this week, but the era of just walking through most of the field are over. Long gone. The other countries don’t have the depth Canada does, but they do have a remarkably talented team or two. I think Switzerland’s Mirjam Ott and Debbie McCormick of the U.S. will be the main contenders but there are a number of others who’ve benefited from the Olympic money being poured into the training of these players. The Russians and the Chinese are perfect examples of this.

As I’ve written before, I think Jones is probably the most determined and focused curler in the game today. She seems to have a Tiger-like drive in her. That will put her in good position to finally win a world title, but it won’t come easily. And as we saw in the Brier final last week, bad ice doesn’t just happen in countries outside of Canada. No matter how good you are, there’s always an element of luck in any championship.