Note to the World Curling Federation

The plural of line-up is line-ups, not line-up's. Please learn the appropriate use of apostrophes.

Colour me deep curmudgeon!

thanks, WCF and TSN

For those in doubt, the title of this posting is sarcasm. TSN is covering the 2010 Women's World Championship, but it is carrying only games involving Canada. During the round robin, TSN is not carrying the draws not involving Canada.

I know the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament is on right now, and I know there's some pretty exciting stock-car racing and football/soccer going on, too. But those sports are all pretty well-covered on all the various networks.

I realize, too, that if TSN carries three draws in a day, they have to pay lots extra for broadcasters and crew.

But curling is a pretty popular sport in Canada. I'd be surprised if it didn't pay more for TSN to carry the non-Canadian draws with a minimum crew on their second channel than for them to use that channel for anything else. I expect (though I don't know this for sure) that the World Curling Federation has exclusive contracts with others prohibiting TSN from covering the non-Canadian games. Does anyone know for sure?

Meanwhile, I have friends who know a great deal about different possible internet sites that might provide access to sport events televised anywhere in the world. They tell me that there might be a few places in Europe that might have some abbreviated coverage of non-Canadian games. But they haven't pointed me to anything that looks like full coverage. 8-(

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.

Open Letter to the World Curling Federation.

I have just sent the following message to the World Curling Federation:

I'm sure you have heard from many others, but let me lend my voice to the complaints from Canadian curling fans:

1. Why on earth did the WCF negotiate a broadcast contract that does not permit us to watch ANY curling on television during the remainder of the round-robin?

2. CBC is allegedly webstreaming the games involving the Canadian team, but they are not doing so for draw #4.

3. In other words, the largest curling fan base in the world has been completely frozen out of the 2008 World Curling Championships.

This is a pathetic disregard for the fans and cannot help but have a detrimental effect on the popularity of the game.

At this point, I am tempted to lobby that the WCF be disbanded; or at the very least, its directors be removed from office.

Webcasting? Internet Streaming? CBC? WCF? WTF?

I swore I wouldn't write about this topic any more, but wtf is going on??? We have been told that CBC is streaming the WCTV webcast of the 2008 World Curling championship round robin games involving Canada, and indeed the cbc sports website says they will be carrying the webcast. But (and perhaps I'm missing something) WTF is it???