General Curling Thread

[MoneyGuy]

Lots of missed shots in this tournament. However, that was a great match between Ontario and Manitoba.

[GirlySports]

Yukon opens with a 3 against Ontario! On fire!

[Derek Sutton]

So many misses, we just saw a 6 from AB. The high scoring ends are results of misses. And the Schiedigger team curled something like 57% in that loss to YT. Have never seen those girls play like that. And as I type that WC 3 just flashed a wide open hit.

[ben voyonsdonc]

There needs to be some contraction in the number of teams. The quality of curling is pretty poor as the talent has been diluted by splitting the territories and including three wild card teams.

[ben voyonsdonc]

Also a lot of the teams are pretty newly formed and are learning how to play as a team. The quadrennial has just started and I noticed similar quality issues at the last Scotties but it wasn’t quite as extreme.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by ben voyonsdonc

There needs to be some contraction in the number of teams. The quality of curling is pretty poor as the talent has been diluted by splitting the territories and including three wild card teams.

The three wildcard teams are supposed to ensure that no good teams are excluded due to fluke or difficult provincial losses. Like Team Lawes.

[kipperiggy]

Originally Posted by ben voyonsdonc

There needs to be some contraction in the number of teams. The quality of curling is pretty poor as the talent has been diluted by splitting the territories and including three wild card teams.

It's a Canadian championship so all of the provinces and territories should be represented. It's probably due to the teams being at the front end of a quadrennial as you mentioned in your other post.

[Derek Sutton]

Originally Posted by kipperiggy

It's a Canadian championship so all of the provinces and territories should be represented. It's probably due to the teams being at the front end of a quadrennial as you mentioned in your other post.

This comes up every year, they could easily go to back to ten teams, but Curling Canada has no desire to slim down the field. Go back to having play in games at the event or smaller regional playdowns in the territories, eliminating Northern Ontario. They have adjusted all these in the past but so far have settled on just opening up the event as much as possible. The Scotties/ Brier are cash cows for Curling Canada an making the events smaller just means less money for Curling Canada; Less games on TV, less draws for fans to attend. Sadly though for the most part this has created some unbalanced competition.

I would like to see them go to a "main" pool and a "qualifying" pool. Top ten teams in the main, bottom 8 in the qualifier. Top 4 teams out of main pool and top 2 teams out of the qualifier pool play in a 6 six team playoff to determine to champion. Every province/ territory is represented and each team has a true shot of being crowned the winner, while the round robin games should see more parody.

[EldrickOnIce]

I think you mean parity

[pseudoreality]

The new format is growing on me, although there are two things that bug me:

- Why does Ontario automatically get two teams each year? If they are good enough for a wildcard spot, earn a wildcard spot.
- I don't like the name wildcard 1, wildcard 2, etc. They should get a provincial name. If Alberta is good enough to have two teams, have Alberta 1 and Alberta 2.

[GirlySports]

I would have be 3 groups of 6 (5 games), Top 2 advance and get put into a Championship group, you carry the one result within your group over.

Play another 4 games against the teams not from your group then have a page playoff. Shortest path is still 11 games.

Groups would be

A: Canada, WC2, WC3, PE, SK, YT
B: Ontario, BC, NS, NT, NL, NU
C: Manitoba, WC1, AB, NB, NO, QC

Group C is death group.

[Derek Sutton]

Originally Posted by pseudoreality

The new format is growing on me, although there are two things that bug me:

- Why does Ontario automatically get two teams each year? If they are good enough for a wildcard spot, earn a wildcard spot.
- I don't like the name wildcard 1, wildcard 2, etc. They should get a provincial name. If Alberta is good enough to have two teams, have Alberta 1 and Alberta 2.

There is some history as to why Ontario has two teams, kind of…. Way back in the early days of the Brier, it was decided that it was too far for the teams from Northern Ontario (Thunder Bay) to travel to southern Ontario to play in the provincials, so NONT was given a spot in the Brier as well. Of course as travel by air and car became more and more popular, NONT just retained its spot, there was not a Team Canada in the Brier.

Once the Scotties began, they would play with a Team Canada (returning champion) but no NONT women’s team, by then travel was much easier than it had been in the 1920’s. What eventually happened about 12(??) or so years ago, Curling Canada added a NONT team to the Scotties and Team Canada to the Brier.

[nieuwy-89]

Great match tonight between Team Lawes and Quebec. I agree the quality of shot making has seemed off but the numbers are coming up overall and games seem closer.

Team Einnarson is looking pretty unstoppable though, they really seem to be in a league of their own against these new super-teams and up-and-comers. This may be her year but the gap could close quickly if Homan, Lawes, Jones stay together, and teams like Black and Skyrlik keep improving.

[GirlySports]

Pool A got really interesting. Behind undefeated Canada there are 5 teams with 2 losses. Remember there is only 1 tiebreaker this year. 3 or more teams tied will come down to H2H and draw to the buttons.

[blender]

Jones is on to the Final with a chance to make history.
I am going to see the semifinal in person tomorrow, so looking forward to that. Never seen high level curling live before. Should be fun.

[Derek Sutton]

Curling Canada really found a way to drag out the playoff round. I like the page playoff system but they’ve really bastardized it. The only rely suppose this week was Homan losing to Nova Scotia in their playoff game. Hoping for an Einarson 4 peat today.

[speede5]

Jones should have gone big on that throw. Chance for 4 this early. Way too conservative.

[GirlySports]

yeah any tournament with 'seeding games' is a bad format.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by speede5

Jones should have gone big on that throw. Chance for 4 this early. Way too conservative.

And now looking like that might have been her best chance.

[speede5]

Well that Will end it