This is a really quick outline of the women’s worlds which starts in Prince George on Saturday. What with being an Olympic year, the field is a little watered down. The U.S., Scotland, and Japan are not sending their best teams. Theoretically, Canada wouldn’t be sending its best team either, but with Jennifer Jones pulling the upset at the Olympic trials, Team Einarson heads to worlds as the Scotties’ winner and that might be Canada’s best team. (It is definitely Canada’s best team at the moment since both Team Jones and Team Fleury have announced they’re breaking up.)
Then there’s the issue of Russia being banned from the event, meaning another top ten team, Team Kovaleva, will not be playing. Even had they not been banned, it’s not clear how one travels from Moscow to Prince George at this point, so I’m not sure how they could have played.
The end result is that we have a very top-heavy field. Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, and South Korea are your realistic contenders for the gold. Those are the only teams that have better than a 50% chance of making the six-team playoff round, and their chances are well over 50%. But the six-team playoff leaves room for at least two teams from the JV portion of the field. And when you get into the playoffs, anything is possible, right? Well, yes and no. There’s only about a one-in-eight chance a team outside the top four wins this event.
Rk Rating Team Playoff Title
1 11.37 Tirinzoni SUI 96.8 30.1
3 11.11 Hasselborg SWE 93.2 22.4
5 11.10 Einarson CAN 93.0 22.1
9 10.74 Kim KOR 82.6 13.6
24 10.00 Morrison SCO 43.7 2.5
25 10.00 Jentsch GER 43.5 2.5
26 9.97 Christensen USA 41.7 2.3
27 9.95 Kitazawa JPN 40.4 2.2
29 9.91 Dupont DEN 38.3 1.9
60 9.14 Yildiz TUR 7.9 0.1
61 9.14 Constantini ITA 7.8 0.1
63 9.09 Rørvik NOR 6.8 0.08
8.93 Baudyšová CZE 4.4 0.04
Odds Oddities: The top-heavy field doesn’t lend itself to finding any value in posted odds, and furthermore, there aren’t many places offering odds on this event anyway. The only value is in Korea to win (at either +700 at Coolbet or especially, +900 at Sports Interaction).