Wednesday: Two Interesting Turn-abouts

Wednesday was a day of two interesting turnabouts at the 2011 Scott Tournament of Hearts Canadian Women's Curling Championship.

The major turnabout was with the Ontario rink, skipped by Rachel Homan. Ontario lost both its games on Wednesday, dropping a 7-4 decision to Team Canada in the morning and then losing 10-6 to Manitoba in the afternoon. In both these games, Homan curled poorly (only 64% in the morning and 71% in the afternoon) and was clearly struggling, both in terms of shot-making and in terms of her mental outlook. Those losses dropped Ontario's record to 6 wins and 3 losses, putting them in a four-way tie for second place. Ontario looked like a super-dominant team at the Scotties, but their losses on Wednesday dropped them back into the real world of the fallible. How, and whether, they rebound in Thursday's games against NW/YT and Quebec will be very interesting to watch.

The other turnabout on Wednesday involved the two wins by Manitoba, skipped by Cathy Overton-Clapham. Going into the day's action, Manitoba was tied for last place with a pathetic 1-6 record. But they took on two of the leaders on Wednesday and emerged victorious. The entire Manitoba team seemed to curl much better on Wednesday, defeating Ontario 10-6 in the afternoon and capping the day with an emotional win over Team Canada 8-6 in the nightcap. In those two games, Cathy-O curled 88% and 93%, respectively.

It was clear that Manitoba had the support of the crowd, who near the end of the match against the Jennifer Jones rink which had fired her last April, were chanting "Ca-thy O! Ca-thy O!" etc.

The on-ice civility of the Cathy-O and Jones teams (yes I did sneak back now and then to watch a bit of the game) was heart-warming and inspiring. Ms. Eclectic and I differ considerably in our assessments of the situation between those teams, but we were both quite pleased with the politeness and civility that imbues at least the surface in the world of curling.

The loss by Team Canada also dropped them back to a record of 6-3, tied for second place with Ontario, Alberta, and Nova Scotia. And speaking of Nova Scotia, they handed Saskatchewan its only defeat so far, a game in which Amber Holland's rink curled no better than they did in several of their games during the Saskatchewan playdowns. With those four teams tied for second and with BC right behind them at 5-4, today's curling will certainly be fun to watch. Unfortunately because of other plans, I'll likely miss both the afternoon and evening draws.