2010 Men's World Championship: Intro

The 2010 Men's Curling World Championship begins this weekend in Italy. Let's see if I can do a bit better at predicting the outcome than I did for the women's worlds.

First, even though Kevin Koe looked strong at the Tim Horton Brier to qualify to represent Canada at this tournament, I wasn't persuaded that his team would be the best one there. I'll pick him to win, but that's more my country of residence speaking than a solid sense of what will happen. Here is a list of all the teams that will be competing this year.

The other two teams that might even win this year are as follows, in my estimation:

• Ulsrud and Norway. They are a good team. I hope the pants don't distract them too much. I gather there is some controversy about whether they will stick with the pants they wore at the Olympics or whether they might go with some different ones that, quite frankly, looked more like a camouflage pattern to me in the photos I saw.
  
• Warwick Smith and Scotland. This is another excellent team. If they are on, and if Smith can keep his temper under control, they will be strong contenders [nice circularity there, don't you think? If they're on, they'll be on.... typical sportswriter nonsense].
• the Carlsens from Sweden might be dark horses, and
• Andy Kapp and Germany could play a role of spoiler but will likely not contend for a medal.
  

I do not wish to insult the teams or my friends from the other countries, but I expect the other teams to be also-rans. And despite my shaky predictions, there does not appear to be an odds-on favourite this year, which should make the entire tournament interesting.

One nice thing about the bizarre, crappy sleep patterns we aging folks experience is that there is every chance in the world that I will be able to watch all those 4am [EDT] draws.... or, at the very least, have something of interest on tv to go back to sleep to. 8-)

Addendum: but, unfortunately, according their website, TSN is broadcasting only the semi-final and final matches. We'll have to search the gray internet sites if we wish to see any of the round robin.

GRRRRR!