Ron Burgundy ditches Veronica Corningstone for Jennifer Jones

A few members of the Jennifer Jones rink out of Horseshoe Valley  Winnipeg stepped up and sung the praises of Ron Burgundy who will be calling the women's draw from the Roar of the Rings on Sunday.

The Winnipeg Sun caught up with the Jones team as it practised prior to the start of the trials. The skipper was all excited that the Anchorman was coming to Winnipeg, Jill Officer felt it might be good for drawing in a younger demographic and Kaitlyn Lawes professed here undying love for the Channel 4 star. You can watch them gush and laugh here. 

Beating the legends

You might think that a guy like Mike McEwen would be happy if the likes of Howard, Stoughton and Martin were already out in the pasture, retired and just sitting back counting their Purple Hearts. That might be especially so as the rinks head into the Roar of the Rings. 

But not so. The talented Manitoba skip told Jim Bender that he'd prefer to win the right to wear Canadian colours at Sochi by beating the best. 

"I'd like to win right now while the legends are arguably still in the game," McEwen said during a practice at the Fort Rouge Curling Club on Monday. "Who knows how long Stoughton, Martin, Howard are going to be here? Maybe not that much longer, so I'd like to win while they're still kickin' it at the top of their game. So, we're going to work our butts off next week."

Meanwhile, Bender has a story on one of those legends, Stoughton who knows that this is likely his last hurrah, a final attempt to go to the Olympics after being oh-so-close before.

Stoughton, 50, will be making his fifth consecutive trials appearance at the Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings that start at the MTS Centre on Sunday. And, barring some unforeseen circumstances, this will be his last shot at earning a trip to the Winter Olympics — the only thing missing on his glorious hall-of-fame resume. 

"It's do-or-die," Stoughton declared Tuesday. "I mean, this is it. The team has put in the effort and the commitment — as have I — knowing that this is my last chance to get there — unless something happens in four years. But I can't see it right now. So, it's exciting and lots of pressure, and we're looking forward to it."

The pre-amble to the Roar

As we get close to the first rocks of the Olympic Trials, aka the Roar of the Rings (really, do they roar? I mean really?) the stories about the athletes getting uptight or nervous or anxious or excited are starting to come fast and furious. 

Joe Pavia of the Ottawa Sun details the sentiments of the curlers from the capital who will be vying for medals in Winnipeg and, as usual, comes up with a solid lead to his story:

MTS may stand for Much Too Stressful. 

The Ottawa area athletes competing in Winnipeg at the MTS Center in the Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings Olympic trials next week believe that how teams handle pressure will go a long way in determining the winners. 

“I firmly believe that the team that wins will be the one who embraces the pressure of the trials and uses it to fuel their performance,” said Lee Merklinger, Sherry Middaugh’s second, 

Team Middaugh is eliminating as many outside distractions as possible. 

“It’s important that we control what texts/messages/emails we receive. Husbands and boyfriends are great but they can sometimes be critical too,” said the Merlinger. As of Sunday, the phones get shut off. 

Craig Savill of Glenn Howard’s rink said, “I think the team that stays the most level headed is going to come out on top. If we do that we have a great chance.”Rachel Homan, however, feels “It‘s just like any other tournament we prepare for.”

More to come, I can guarantee you!

“Don’t act like you’re not impressed.” Ron Burgundy to call curling

The news has been out for a bit now, but in case you haven't heard, Ron Burgundy is coming to the Roar of the Rings. The famed Channel 4 newsman will join Vic, Russ and Linda in the booth for a game in Winnipeg and also to promote the upcoming Anchorman 2 movie.



Here's the release from TSN on what should be a memorable appearance in the booth.

TSN and the Canadian Curling Association confirmed Sunday that new TSN sportscaster Ron Burgundy will make his Canadian broadcasting debut during the opening day of the Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings on Sunday, Dec. 1 beginning at 2pm et/11am pt. The announcement was made during TSN's broadcast of the 101st Grey Cup. 

Live from Winnipeg, Burgundy will join TSN's fellow "legendary" curling broadcaster Vic Rauter to call live game action during the network's coverage of the Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings opening draw.    

"Marked by the gods of broadcasting and placed into this shimmering green sphere like a golden egg in hay, chosen like an unclean jackal by Noah himself, I accept your hallowed task and sing out with a battle cry worthy of your love and your wisdom," said Burgundy. "And that song is, 'Winnipeg, get ready to paint the town Burgundy!'"  

"It's an honour to work with such an esteemed colleague," said Rauter. "I'm a huge fan of his work. Who are we talking about again?"  

One of the biggest events in Canadian curling, Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings determines which team will represent Canada at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games. TSN has complete coverage of Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings from December 1 through to the finals on December 7 and 8. Ron Burgundy is featured in Paramount Pictures' Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, opening in theatres everywhere on Dec. 20.

As well, in honour of Ron's Canadian debut, here are the 25 best lines from Anchorman 1:

25. “He had a voice that could make a wolverine purr and suits so fine they made Sinatra look like a hobo.” — Narrator

24. “I immediately regret this decision.” — Ron Burgundy

23. “I’ll have a Manhattan. And kick the vermouth to the side with a pair of steel-toed boots.” — Veronica Corningstone

22. “I love scotch. Scotchy scotch scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly.” — Ron Burgundy

21. “Oh, I can barely lift my right arm ’cause I did so many. I don’t know if you heard me counting. I did over a thousand.” — Ron Burgundy

20. “Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means ‘a whale’s vagina.’” — Ron Burgundy

19. “It’s terrible. She has beautiful eyes, and her hair smells like cinnamon!” — Ron Burgundy

18. “Baxter, is that you? Baxter! Bark twice if you’re in Milwaukee.” — Ron Burgundy

17. ” There were horses, and a man on fire, and I killed a guy with a trident.” — Brick Tamland

16. “You are a smelly pirate hooker. Why don’t you go back to your home on Whore Island?” — Ron Burgundy

15. “I read somewhere their periods attract bears. Bears can smell the menstruation.” — Brick Tamland

14. “Well if you were a man, I’d punch you. Punch you right in the mouth.” — Ron Burgundy

13. “I’m very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.” — Ron Burgundy

12. “You look like a blueberry.” — Veronica Corningstone

11. “The human torch was denied a bank loan.” — Ron Burgundy

10. “It is anchorman, not anchorlady. And that is a scientific fact.” — Champ Kind

9. “I would like to extend to you an invitation to the pants party.” — Brick Tamland

8. “[I'll] take your mother, Dorothy Mantooth, out for a nice seafood dinner and never call her again.” — Champ Kind

7. “It’s so damn hot. Milk was a bad choice.” — Ron Burgundy

6. “What? You pooped in the refrigerator? And you ate the whole wheel of cheese? How’d you do that? Heck, I’m not even mad; that’s amazing.” — Ron Burgundy

 5. “Don’t act like you’re not impressed.” — Ron Burgundy

4. “They’ve done studies, you know. 60 percent of the time, it works every time.” — Brian Fantana

3. “I’m in a glass case of emotion!” — Ron Burgundy

2. “You know I don’t speak Spanish.” — Ron Burgundy

1. “I love lamp.” — Brick Tamland

Anybody want to buy an island?

Ailsa Craig is well known to curlers as the place where rocks come from. At least, the best rocks in the game.

And now, if you're interested, you can own the Island. Yup, it's for sale and has been since 2010. The price has been reduced from $4 million to $2.4 million. But it has nothing of value, according to this slide show from the New York Times.

The island has no inhabitants, no electricity, no fresh water and no arable land -- nothing of value, it would seem. It has been for sale since 2010, the price reduced to $2.4 million from $4 million. 

Poor attendance at Grand Slam: "average Joe Fan just didn’t want to go"

It wasn't hard to tell by looking at it on TV but the attendance for the latest Grand Slam event in Medicine Hat was pretty pitiful. In the Medicine Hat News, writer Darren Steinke points out that the final was up agains the CFL Western final with the Roughriders playing, but that wasn't the only reason why no one showed up. 

While you can come up with all sorts of theories of why the average attendance at (sic) might have been around 500, it seems people might just be forgetting that the average Joe Fan just didn’t want to go. 

Dating back to 2004, attendance for major curling events held at The Arena has been on a steady decline.In the 2004 Continental Cup of Curling, the 4,006 seats at The Arena were almost full for every draw with an average attendance of 3,847. The 2007 Continental Cup saw an average of 2,950 spectators attend each draw. Just three years later in 2010, the average attendance for the Canada Cup of Curling was 1,820. 

While attendance figures weren’t released for the Canadian Open, it was obvious to see it had a lower average attendance per draw than the proceeding three previous big events.

Comparing the Grand Slams to the CCA events is tough as the CCA can use advertising time on its broadcasts to cross promote. But as Steinke points out, it seems the Slams have attendance difficulties wherever they go.

For the Sportsnet-controlled Grand Slam of Curling events, anyone that does tune in can see attendance has been a problem, so it isn’t just the Hat where the average person doesn’t want to go to curling. Of course, it is easy to argue the Canadian Open wasn’t promoted as heavily as the three Canadian Curling Association events that were here. That doesn’t cover up the point of the steep declines. Average fans are staying away. The numbers don’t lie. As Parcells said, you are what your record says you are.

Bald is beautiful on the curling ice

Let’s all admit it: we’ve thought this for a while. Being bald is advantageous to curling. Now the Medicine Hat News, which is providing coverage of the Canadian Open Grand Slam event, has put our thoughts into words with a nice nugget on the follicly challenged rock-tossers who are at the top of the game. In fact, writer Bruce Penton got Glenn Howard to admit that there’s a reason to the lack of hair:

 “It’s stress,” said Howard, the Ontario skip who has four world titles (two as skip) to his credit. “The stress we have to put up from the front end day after day is the reason has to be,” saidHoward. “It’s hard to live with that every day. And you can quote me on that.” 

Over at the Canadian Mixed (which is apparently still being held these days for what reason, I'm not sure), Joe Pavia has some notes including a good one on Quebec skip Mike Fournier and his great blog.

Just before he came to Ottawa he published 'Great and Powerful Curling Gods -- Hear my Prayer! I would offer to sacrifice a virgin in your honour but I am not likely to find one at a Mixed Nationals.' Fournier's blog can be read at http://inthehousecurling.blogspot.ca/2013.

And in case you didn’t get the news yet or hear Ian Tetley yelling, Erika Brown and her rink won the U.S. Women’s trials and will represent the Americans in Sochi.

''We all wanted to get back there, that's for sure,'' Brown said. ''Everyone played so great all week, but the last three games we really played the best we could when we needed to.''

Meanwhile the men’s event will need a third game after Pete Fenson defeated John Shuster in the second match of a best-of-three final on Saturday. The two teams will meet on Sunday for all the marbles and Fenson isn’t worried.

“We’ve been through it lots of times,” Fenson said. “My team handles these big games really well. I never worry about them. I know they are going to show up, and I know they’re going to be relaxed.”

And the Tweet of the Day goes out to Brad Jacobs who got an early morning wake up call. 

6:14am wake up call on my only day to sleep in and had to pee in a cup #comeon #backtobed
— Brad Jacobs (@bradjacobs15) November 17, 2013