The Brier starts on Friday, so let’s talk about it. This Brier is unusual is that Canada’s Olympic representative is playing in it. This has not happened before, and for good reason. Once you’ve played the Olympics, the goal of the last four years of your curling life, it’s going to be hard to get […]
The Olympics are over and I have some random disjointed thoughts. The events themselves had the character we were expecting. The women’s event could have gone a number of different ways and a team with four losses ended up beating another team with four losses in the gold medal game. On the other hand, the […]
I’m a fan of alternates being used at some point. Not for any strategic advantage, but just because I like seeing as many people as possible get an opportunity to throw a stone at the Olympics. It isn’t always possible for alternates to make it into a game. Some teams are grinding through the event […]
Yesterday, we previewed the men’s field in Beijing. Now let’s talk about the women’s event, which begins on Wednesday and closes with the gold medal game on the 20th. The thing you need to know is that the women’s event is much more wide open than the men. There are four teams on the men’s […]
Four-person Olympic curling starts Wednesday and concludes with the gold medal game on the 19th. The event consists of ten teams who play round robin where the top four enter a single-elimination playoff for the global marbles. I’ve used my ratings to simulate the event one million times. And that gives us some fun and […]
(I’m really proud of that title.) With the shadow of the Olympics looming, the Scotties don’t quite capture the full attention of the curling world. But it’s a fact that both the Beijing games and the Scotties will have two of the top four teams in the world competing. The Scotties start Friday in Thunder […]
What makes curling great is that 60 year olds can compete with 20 year olds and women can compete with men. But that also means that once you’ve made it as a competitive curler, you can be there for a long time if you’re motivated to do so. And that’s apparent when you see just […]
I probably should just have a running post with provincial previews. Note to self for the future. But one can make the case the this event deserves its own space. After boldly declaring that the Alberta women’s provincials would be the most wide open provincial event, I am proven wrong a few days later. This […]
There are a couple of provincial events going forward this week and I, for one, am thankful. (Just don’t test anyone and I’m sure we’ll get through it fine.) I coded up the brackets and simulated each event one million times and I have probabilities to talk about. Allow me to write a few words […]
There hasn’t been a lot of written content here, recently. That’s partly because the curling season is falling apart again. The Canadian Mixed Doubles Olympic Trials have been cancelled and USA Curling cancelled nationals. The BC Championships were reportedly cancelled but now it seems like they might be back on. But it looks likely a […]
