China Wins the 2009 Women's World Curling Championship

I saw only the first two ends before drifting off to sleep. What I saw was a pretty good indication of the outcome (China defeated Sweden 8-6). The Chinese team looked very good, and the Swedish team looked less good. I see that by the end of the game, the curling percentages were the same for the two teams, but I wouldn't have expected that from what I saw in the first two ends.

Meanwhile, Canada lost the bronze medal game to Denmark. The teams seemed to be fairly even, forcing each other to take only one point in each end. But then Denmark scored a big three, and Canada couldn't recover from that.

The Bronze Medal Game on TV? Probably not.

Both Alan and I forgot that at the world championships, there is a playoff to determine who wins the bronze medal.

As of now, I can find no indication that TSN will be telecasting this game, even though it involves Team Canada. Not even on TSN2.

Let's see: Curling. World Class. Prime time. The team from the world's largest and richest market. And yet the World Curling Federation didn't negotiate even a conditional contract with TSN to show the bronze medal game in Canada? Who are these schmucks?

Update: Not only is TSN not showing the bronze metal game, but I seem to be unable to follow it on CurlCast, too! Is there any site where we can follow what is happening??

Update #2: Ah, CurlCast is now showing the results. Perhaps the game began at 9pm EDT, not 8pm.

Canada Loses 3-4 Playoff

As I predicted on Thursday, Team Canada will not be in the finals of the 2009 Women's World Curling Championships. The Jones rink lost in eleven ends to Sweden, 5-4. Jones had the edge, being up 3-2 with the hammer in the 9th end. But they gave up a steal of two in the ninth and then took only one in the tenth, forcing an extra end. Sweden had the hammer and cashed in one for the win.

So no miracles this time; no rabbits out of hats. And no medals for Team Canada.

I wonder if TSN will still show the semi-final and final...

Update and correcton: Yes, TSN is showing the semi-final and final. But Canada is not necessarily out of the medals. TSN just mentioned there will be a bronze-medal game with, Denmark, the loser of the Denmark-Sweden game. I wonder if TSN will show that game....

Not This Year

The 2009 Canadian Women's Curling Champions, skipped by Jennifer Jones, finished the round robin in Korea with an excellent record of 9 wins and only 2 losses. But there are other good teams there, too, and this record was good enough for only a third-place finish. From TSN,

The Winnipeg skip will play in the 3-versus-4 Page playoff game after finishing with a record of 9-2 -- tied with Denmark's Angelina Jensen, who finished second by virtue of her round-robin victory over Jones.

China's Bingyu Wang (10-1) secured top spot in the round robin for the second straight year with a 7-2 win over Norway's Marianne Rorvik (1-10). Wang opened the tournament with an 11-6 loss to Jones, then reeled off 10 straight victories -- several of them blowouts -- to reach Friday's 1-versus-2 Page playoff matchup with Denmark.

The path to the world title will be a rough one for Jones, who will face Sweden's Anette Norberg on Saturday. Norberg (7-4) beat Jones 7-4 in their Draw 11 meeting, handing the Canadian her first loss of the tournament.

... A win would pit Jones against the loser of the China-Denmark tilt in Saturday's semifinal (TSN, 6 a.m. ET), with the winner advancing to Sunday's final (TSN, 2 a.m. ET).

Denmark handed Jones her only other round-robin loss, a 7-5 decision in a game Canada led 5-3 after eight ends. And China is no slouch, either -- Wang beat Jones twice in last year's tournament before ultimately falling in the championship match.

So to get to the finals of the 2009 Women's World Curling Championship, Jones must first beat Sweden, who defeated Canada in the round robin, and then must defeat Denmark, who also beat Canada in the round robin. And then, to win the championship, Canada must defeat the amazing team from China (whom they handled fairly well in the round robin).

I know the Jones rink has made some impressive comebacks over the past couple of years. But the odds are against their making it to the finals, much less winning the championship. And I'm trying to say this impassionately. Please don't write comments about being a fan or "ya gotta have faith" or some such nonsense. If you really think Canada can [update: I meant to say will] win this, please explain why in the comments.

Meanwhile in Korea

Check out the Curlcast reports. Denmark and Sweden, the only other undefeated teams (besides Canada) are nip and tuck after 7 ends

2009 Women's World Championships - Results

Are you getting tired of hunting for links to what is happening in Korea. Here is a link to the CurlCast scoring and results.

Twelve Ends??

Have you ever seen a game go to twelve ends? In the 25 years or so that I have been watching curling, I've never seen it. And thanks to the crappy WCF marketing making it difficult for those of us in Canada to watch the Round Robin of the 2009 Women's World Curling Championships (other than on CurlTV), we didn't see it this morning, either:

Sheet D 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Final

Korea 1 1 0 1 0 2 0 2 0 1 0 0 8

Sweden* 0 0 2 0 3 0 1 0 2 0 0 2 10

What do you figure happened? My guess is that Sweden had a hit and stick to win in the 11th but rolled out. Does anyone know for sure?

The Telecasting of World-Class Curling

There are two curling events going on this weekend, both of which are world-class events.

1. The Canada Cup in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. Unfortunately, we have been unable to watch the curling there live during the past week, but beginning tomorrow, TSN will be carrying semi-finals and finals:

Mar. 21, 2009	3:00 PM Local (5:00 PM ET)	TSN	Semi-Final (women)
Mar. 21, 2009	7:30 PM Local (9:30 PM ET)	TSN	Semi-Final (men)
Mar. 22, 2009	8:30 AM Local (10:30 AM ET)	TSN	Final
Mar. 22, 2009	7:30 PM Local (9:30 PM ET)	TSN	Final

2. Women's World Championships begin tomorrow in Korea. CurlTV will be carrying games from many (maybe even all, but not all involving Canada?) of the round robin draws. Their broadcast schedule is here. It isn't clear who or what is carrying which game of which draw, but it looks as if we'll be able to watch a lot of the games from there.

CurlTV in Korea?

According to all the advance material I have seen, nobody in Canada will be televising any of the round robin games of the Women's World Curling Championships in 2009 from Korea. So I looked to see what draws CurlTV might be showing on their internet tv service.

When I couldn't find an answer on the CurlTV website, I wrote them, and received a very quick response:

Unfortunately it is too early to know which draws we will be covering form the World Women’s in Korea in March. The event is just under four weeks away and we will likely not know the broadcast schedule until a week or two before the event begins.

Does anyone have any information about other possible ways to watch those draws? Ms. Eclectic and (and apparently Alan, too) are erratic sleepers, and watching the worlds during the middle of the night might be a great option for us and many others.