Let's Do It All, All Over Again

Canada edged Saskatchewan Friday night to move on to the championship game.

Then Ontario soundly defeated Nova Scotia Saturday morning to win a berth in the semi-final this evening.

Then Saskatchewan beat Ontario in the semi-final Saturday evening to advance to the championship game, to be played Sunday evening.

So here's the setup:

• 12:30 Sunday (Saskatchewan time!), Ontario and Nova Scotia meet each other again, this time for the bronze medal.
• 5:30 Sunday (Saskatchewan time), Canada meets Saskatchewan again.

Ontario has beaten Nova Scotia twice so far in the tournament and at every position had higher curling percentages during the round robin. If they can control the downs when they miss a shot and can gain some resilience, they should win the bronze handily. [It turns out Alan was right when he said we'd see Homan again, but I'm not sure he was talking about the bronze medal game.]

The championship game should be very good. Team Canada was pretty consistently good throughout the tournament, but they did lose three games, including one to Saskatchewan. There seems to be a bit more variance in the performance of the Holland rink from Saskatchewan (a testable hypothesis, I guess, but I ain't doing it right now). My impression throughout what I saw of the tournament was that Team Saskatchewan was often brilliant but also had some pretty dismal flat periods. [Update: a test of the hypothesis reveals I'm off base with this supposition.]

Saskatchewan defeated Team Canada in the round robin and forced them to an extra end before losing in the Page 1-2 playoff game. Add to that the fact that after a week visiting home in Ontario, I'm now back in Regina, SK, and I'll pick Saskatchewan to win this year's Scott Tournament of Hearts (though I wouldn't be disappointed to have Jones and the current Team Canada represent Canada once again at the Worlds).