Olympic Pre-Trials
Some of the best
curling in the world is going on this week in Kitchener, at the pre-Olympic Trials
qualifying. 12 men’s and 12 women’s teams vying to keep their Olympic dream
alive, and to qualify for the final Olympic Trials to be held in December.
If you are a true
curling fan, it will not get better than this. The Grand Slams have somewhat
turned into a festival of the same 5 or 6 teams all fighting over some pile of
money that they really do not need. It all seems like rather contrived drama to
me. As I have said before, I can only
watch Martin play Howard so many times before it gets a little dull. The Brier on
the other hand has the tradition and the prestige, but it also has PEI and the
Territories (at least for now). The Trials offer a glimpse into something
different. These are some of the top teams that you do not see on television
very often, if at all. They are playing for something that means far more than
money. And they are among the best teams in the country.
It also shows how much
depth exists in Canadian Curling, in that any of the 12 teams at the pre-Trials
would have to be considered as a strong favorite if you dropped them into a
World Championship.
This is truly curling
worth watching. The stakes for these guys could not be higher. Making the final
eight will either be a breakthrough for some of the teams, or a confirmation of status for
others.
On the men’s side,
Jacobs, Gushue, Menard, Rumfeldt, Kean, Cochrane, Balsdon, Higgs, Laycock,
Morris, Fowler and Frans are the 12 teams that will compete for the right to
play at the Trials in December. Martin, Howard, Stoughton, McEwen, Koe and Epping
have already qualified into the final eight, and thus are not playing this week.
So who will get
through this weekend? I think the most-battle tested teams will make it through.
Gushue will find a way to get a spot. Tough to bet against Morris or Jacobs,
but I think I would pick Ménard ahead of either based on what I saw at
Gatineau. Jacobs is cursed with surreal expectations, they will weigh him down
this weekend. Kean I think needs another 4 years before they can truly contend.
Morris will struggle to find chemistry with his new team. My pick is Gushue and
Ménard. I will be cheering hard for the boys from Quebec; it would be awesome
to have some Quebec content at the Trials, and Ménard and friends have proven
that they can play at that level. Tune in this weekend – or follow along
on-line at curling.ca. And of course good luck to my buddy Balsy, aka Greg
Balsdon who I will be seeing in few weeks at the Canadian Mixed.
Once into the final
eight, I am picking McEwen to break through at the Trials.
I am not sure what
will happen in the women’s, but I think the December Trials will ultimately be a 3 horse
race between Heather Nedohin, Jenny Jones, and Rachel Homan. The only team that
could come out of this weekend with an outside shot at the Olympics is Kelly Scott. The other
teams will be heavy underdogs at the Trials. Of the big three, you would be
crazy to bet against Homan the way she has played. So my picks are:
Pre Trials:
Men: Gushue, Ménard
Women: Scott, Bernard
Trials: McEwen and Homan to represent Canada at the
Olympics - you read it here first.
***
The Quebec Curling
Tour Championship was held this weekend, possibly for the last time. Attendance
is down, and there seems to be little interest in Quebec to support a tour that
is inaccessible to many of the curlers that pay for it. (The event is funded by
“taxing” every curling event in the province $20 per player to accumulate a
prize pool for this tournament). Not sure what the solution is, but I am working
on it!
On the ice, Menard
beat Reid in the final. Reid is skipping a team with JS Roy, Mo and Lou (with
Simon Dupuis).
Some of the big Quebec
names are not having stellar seasons so far; I will not name names but there
were a lot of grumpy curlers at Laviolette that were out well before Sunday. Tough to predict who will do well
in Provincials, but so far it looks a bit of a one-horse race based on the way the big teams are playing.
As for me, we lost a
tough quarter final game to Dan Caron. No offense to Dan and team – who played
great – but it felt like we beat ourselves. We seem to be giving away 8th
end deuces like candy on Halloween. Need to fix that...
***
The Quebec competitive curlers had their
annual tête-à-tête with Curling Quebec. The meeting went very well (far less yelling than last year), although
all we can seem to agree in is the fact that the current Circuit and Provincial
Qualifying format is not working.
Quebec has a number of
challenges:
1. Competitive
sign-ups are WAY down. Probably only about 25-30 teams will try to compete to
go to the Brier this year. Probably fewer than 10 women’s teams will sign up.
There are a number of theories as to why:
- The good teams are “too good”, thereby discouraging average teams from entering
- The entry fee (around $300) is too high
- There are less curlers – less juniors feeding into the system
- Nobody but the top teams wants to spend a week at Quebec Provincials usually held in some remote town
·
2. The Quebec
Curling Tour is not working – average teams see it as a “tax” on every
bonspiel, for which they receive nothing. The Circuit collects less and less money every year, and they had a tough time finding 16 teams to fill the event.
2. Quebec is BIG
It is a big challenge
to satisfy the competitive teams (which come mainly from Montreal, Quebec,
Gatineau and the Saguenay), as well as support the more remote parts of the
province like Abitibi and Cote Nord who also want to play.
3. Quebec is diverse.
How do you accommodate
the needs of the 6-7 teams that practice, train, travel and work their asses
off to be competitive at a National level with the needs of Colts/New teams that are trying to break
into competition, or the remote region teams that just want to play? The reality is we need both.
I do not have the
answers to these problems – but I am working on it, as are CQ and the
competitive players. Everyone wants to develop curling and to see more teams playing competitively, and recreationally. But how?
Is still tell the story of how a mere 20 years ago, I qualified for Provincials out of the Montreal region in a playdown that featured 76 teams for 3 spots! Now there are less than 30 teams in the entire province. SIGH.
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