Draw #5: Across the Sheets, some early reflections

While Alan focuses on the game between Norway and Germany, I've been looking at different sheets at different times. Some observations:

• There's a good-sized crowd here even though Canada isn't playing tonight. It is nowhere near as big as the afternoon crowd was, but it is, as I said, good-sized.
  
• Despite the close score and the even curling percentages, it looked to me as if the US was being noticeably out-curled by Sweden in the first three ends. Sweden scored two more in the fourth, though, and the score (4-1) is now more in line with my perceptions.
  
• The big surprise was that after Czech blanked the first end, they scored four in the second. Not only that, but the curling percentages were much higher for the Czechs than for China.
  
• And Scotland is seriously out-curling Switzerland.

So despite my hopes and expectations for close games, they haven't seemed all that close early on. But there's no telling what might happen. Once again, let's all give thanks for Russ Howard for helping to bring about the free-guard zone.