Draws Eight and Nine

The feature was BC vs Canada, battle of the British Columbians. Kelley Law and her team persevered, handing Canada its first defeat (kinda nice to see!). Can Georgina ever yell loudly! You never realize in the past, always seeing her play lead.

Draw Nine saw Law fall prey to PEI in an extra end. Ontario once again had an extra end, but lost this one to BC after a fabulous draw by Kelly Scott.

Draw Seven

Oh boy, what a brutal draw. Two runaways (Saskatchewan, Manitoba) and a rough game on sheet D (BC winning over NS). Totally unimpressive. Thank goodness I didn't fork over the fare to fly to Lethbridge this year! Ontario simply got demolished by Jan Betker. I missed a good portion of the game but what I saw was misses by Scharf on tough shots, and too-aggressive strategy calls. K.I.S.S. !!

Looking forward to a better game tonight, BC vs Canada, but I won't hold my breath for BC to win. Canada is cruising.

Draw Five

Feature game was Alberta and Canada. If it wasn't for the weird double-bounce of Bernard's last rock of the 1st end, it was nothing really worth watching. Another blow-out by Team Canada, winning 9-2 in 6 ends. Jeanna Schraeder in particular had the magic touch. They'd just better be careful they don't get all their good shots over with in the first few games.

Kelley Law managed a great comeback to win her game by stealing one in the 10th, and Krista Scharf pulled off another gutsy extra-end win: third in a row! They've got to be tired. They have the morning off, luckily, before they play Saskatchewan this afternoon. That should show whether Ontario deserves to be at the top of the heap. NFLD got their first win, but I've pretty much counted them out.

The class of the field is obviously Saskatchewan, BC, Canada, Ontario and Manitoba. It looks like the others are going to be also-rans this year.

Overall, the quality of curling has been pretty pitiful, especially when compared with 2005 and 2006. Lots of mistakes, although mostly in execution rather than overall strategy (at least, for the teams who are winning). Still: I've seen better.

Draw Four

Can't really describe what went on, but Manitoba won, Québec pulled off a nice victory, Saskatchewan won a close one over NWT, and in an extra end, Scharf stole two to pull off a victory over Kelley Law and BC. Way to go Krista!

Draw Three

Only two games on the ice, and the feature was Canada vs PEI. I'm not really keen on either team but I'd certainly favoured Team Canada. It was really a game of misses, though the strategy from both teams (especially Kelly Scott) was pretty decent. Suzanne Gaudet (PEI) had to make save after save after save for her team, and of course she missed the occasional shot. Scott's team played ok, but they'd have been in serious trouble had Gaudet's team stepped up and played a good game. Ultimately, Canada wins 11-6.

In the other game, it also seemed to be a game of misses, but Alberta won over Newfoundland 8-5.

This afternoon's draw isn't televised, so I will have to watch the summary this evening.
Best matchup should be Ontario vs BC.