Now That I Have Settled Down

I unabashedly cheer for the Canadian teams at the world curling championships; I am what is known in some circles as a "homer" (I cheer for my home team, not for the home team of the venue.). Alan, I think, is both more objective than I am and more cosmopolitan.

But let's face it, that gold medal game, while exciting and close, was pretty poor curling for both teams. Not only were there numerous misses and partial misses, as we described throughout the match, but numerically both teams curled poorly, too (Canada 74%, Sweden 70%, both well below their averages going into the final match). And we can't lay Canada's loss all on what happened in the 10th end. After all, there were two times (6th and 8th ends) when misses and near misses meant Canada scored only one instead of two with the hammer.

One of the reasons for such poor curling was likely that so many of the players had not been in the finals of the worlds before (though that hardly explains Norberg's unusual calls at times). Also, it seemed maybe the ice was variable and changed over time. Let's hope these are part of the explanations. If they are, then we can look for these teams to do better next year when the Women's Worlds will be in Canada.

Norberg's team pulled it out. Team Canada didn't quite make it after a fairy tale run to the finals from the tie-breaker.