Curling Medal Rounds Start Today

While it has been overshadowed by the hockey tournament, curling nevertheless has two 25 point gold medals at stake. Our first place team, Cornballers, made both the men's and women's medal rounds with Team Sweden and hopes to add to their Fantasy Olympic lead. #3 Da Nang Dynamos are also alive in both rounds and need a couple of big wins by Switzerland to move up.

9 AM & 2 PM PST - CurlingOn the women's side the top four teams in the world all moved on to the semifinals. The first semifinal at 9 a.m. local time matches China (Brian Schwartz/Nordique Combined), 6-3 in the Games and ranked fourth in the world, with world #2 Sweden (Ellis Kunka/Cornballers), 7-2 in the Games. China lost 6-4 in their first match with Sweden, but has a higher composit score because of Sweden's 10-1 blowout loss to Russia. While Sweden is a traditional power, China has only recently become a major world team but is technically sound. China was the silver medal favorite going in and is a slight favorite in the semifinal.

The other semifinal on paper is more of a mismatch. World #1 Canada (Adam Claus/Ice Lugers) went 8-1 with their only loss to China, while world #3 Switzerland (John Binz/Da Nang Dynamos) went 6-3 including a 5-4 loss to Canada. Anything less than gold would be a major disappointment for the home team, and they should get past Switzerland again. Especially considering they have the hot chick who's mad all the time.
The men's finals start at 2 p.m. with world #1 Canada taking on world #8 Sweden. Canada went 9-0 in the round robin including an easy 7-3 win over Sweden. Sweden went 5-4 but got a huge upset of world #2 Great Britain to move on to the medal rounds. Canada is obviously a heavy favorite and has clearly been the best team so far with six easy wins among their nine matches.

In the other semifinal, world #3 Norway (Brittany B./Buck-Toothed Rabbit Bitches) plays world #5 Switzerland. Norway (7-2) won the teams' first matchup 7-4 but Switzerland (6-3) played well including a 7-3 win over Sweden a couple of days ago. Norway is a slight favorite.

Will Curling Collapse Crush Claus's Chances?

Both men's and women's curling begin tonight with 16 of the 20 teams in action.

In the unlikely event that some readers don't know what curling is, here goes. The object is to slide a round, 40-lb. stone down a long strip of ice, and end up as close to a target as possible. There are four players per team. The skip calls the shots, the thrower slides the stone, and two sweepers sweep the ice with brushes after the stone is thrown to steer the stone on the ice.
There are ten "ends" in a match. A team scores points based on how many of its stones are closer to the target than its opponent's closest stone. As you might imagine, having the last throw in an end is a huge advantage, so the teams take turns going last.

As Wikipedia states, "The relaxed, turn-based progression of the game have led some to compare curling to chess and baseball." As an avid baseball fan I would have to agree with this comparison. Curling is exactly like baseball, with the only difference being that there's no pitching, hitting, fielding and baserunning, and there is sweeping sliding rocks on ice.

It's hard to overestimate the pressure facing the Canadians to win as favorites on home soil. Even silver on either side would disappoint a nation. Yet the pressure on Adam Claus is even greater, as he has a first round pick to justify and already more than 39 points to make up in the standings. The work begins today.

On the men's side, Canada (Adam Claus/Ice Lugers) is a heavy favorite for gold. Of course, this is far from a foregone conclusion. Canada won gold at Turin but was upset in the finals at both Nagano and Salt Lake City. The other top teams are Great Britain (Zach Chromiak/Banker's Club), Norway (Brittany B./Buck-Toothed Rabbit Bitches) and Sweden (Ellis Kunka/Cornballers). The USA (Tim Lavoie/Fightin' Ovechkins) has an outside shot as well with two curlers repping Duluth, Minnesota.

Canada is also favored in the women's competition, but the women's teams are more evenly matched. Canada didn't even make the final at Turin, settling for bronze. Since then, China (Brian Schwartz/Nordique Combined) has invested a lot of money in training for women's curling and while inexperienced, has a reputation for technical proficiency. They're favored for silver. Sweden,and Switzerland (John Binz/Da Nang Dynamos) battled in the gold medal match at Turn and are still strong. Denmark (undrafted) and Britain have an outside shot.

The teams will play a round robin with each of the 10 matching up against every other team. The top four teams make the medal rounds, with the gold medal matches held February 26 (women's) and February 27 (men's).