Curling

[roguejuror]

 

[Mudcat]

 

[Mudcat]

The good news is, even when not playing up to standard, Canada is at the top of the standings.

The bad news is, Canada is really not playing up to standard.

There has been some shaky shit and my confidence is low. This guy plowed through proven champions Gushue and Howard and Stoughton to get here - and now he loses to Japan and is life-and-death to squeak out a win against Russia. Playing to the level of your opponent, I guess they call it.

Not feeling pumped about this thing.

Couple of tough games today against teams in the thick of playoff contention. It's really important to hang on to the 1 or 2 seed.

 

[Mudcat]

Canadian men are in freefall mode, now losing to Denmark.

Apparently skip sent out a tweet last night about how fatigued they are and expressing admiration for former multiple world champions like Jeff Stoughton and Glen Howard for enduring the grind.

Nice to pay tribute to those guys and everything but jesus christ, what is the problem? You are young guys. It's a week of curling. Guys do it every year. You are in your home country for chrissakes. I'm sure it is more tiring than a lot of people understand but there is no reason to be more tired than the other teams.





Every spot they drop really makes a difference. Of course if they keep playing crappy, they are screwed regardless of positioning.

 

[Mudcat]

And Canada continues to slide and ends up the 4th seed in the playoffs. So they will have to win 3 straight elimination games without last rock advantage in any of them. It can certainly be done but they will need to stop sucking.

Hopefully the day off today can help them reset.

3 vs 4 page playoff versus Denmark is tomorrow at 2 pm EST.

 

[roguejuror]

Maybe an Asian betting syndicate fixed it!

 

[Mudcat]

 

[Mudcat]

Here we go.

 

[Mudcat]

Canada forces Denmark to take 1 in the first and gets the hammer - so basically, mission accomplished as far as that goes - but skip not looking convincing at all with his rocks.

We are not happy.

 

[Mudcat]

Canada has been far from perfect but has done enough so far, heading to the 10th end tied with hammer.

Just keep it clean and finish this boyz.

 

[Mudcat]

Well they most certainly did not keep it clean; I don't understand their strategy at all. It was like they wanted to give Denmark every possible chance to steal.

But anyway, Canada won.





No time to rest though. Semi-final against the very tough Scots starts in just a couple hours, 7 pm EST.

Scotland starting with hammer.

 

[roguejuror]

Not a single stream on the internet. :down:

 

[Mudcat]

Canada got hot while Scotland delivered a surprisingly poor performance in the semi. It goes down as a 6-3 final which really flatters the Scots.

It's Canada vs the red hot Swedes for all the marbles tomorrow night.

 

[Mudcat]

The hour of judgment approacheth.

 

[MrMonkey]

 

[Mudcat]

Bad start. Canadian skip not sharp. Swedish skip sharp as fok.

4-1 Sweden after 3.

 

[roguejuror]

what happened

 

[Mudcat]

The Canadian team was not good enough. I feel completely justified in how I was rooting for everyone over them back at the Brier.

I can't explain how they got that far. Even when they were winning they were clearly not up to standard.

Actually I should say: the team is just fine. The skip is not good enough. At that level, you gotta make shots.

Sweden played well although they made a few big mistakes that should have been pounced upon. But skip didn't have it.



So it ends up


Sweden
Canada
Scotland


So that's the end of prime curling season. As it is an Olympic year next year, there will be an extra tourney for Olympic qualifying, but that's not until December.

Brad Jacobs has not qualified to participate so far and I hope it stays that way.