2015 Brier, in Calgary

[Derek Sutton]

As an avid curler and even bigger curling fan I'm getting excited as the Womens and Mens Nationals near. The Saddledome is home to the brier Feb 28- Mar 8 and the field is set.

You would have to say there were a few upsets as the provicials champions were crowned over the past couple of weeks, with the biggest coming out of Manitoba followed by Ontario. Reid Carruthers and his newly formed team will be wearing the Bison this year as once again the Mcewen Team, despite being the number 1 team in the world right now, failed to win the province. And Team Keam, another young upsart team will be representing Ontario. The field is as follows

CAN- John Morris
AB- Kevin Koe
BC- Jim Cotter
MB- Reid Carruthers
NB- Jeremy Mallais
NWT- Jaimie Koe
NF- Brad Gushue
NS- Pete Burgess
NOnt- Brad Jacobs
Ont- Mark Keam
PEI-TDB
PQ- Jean Michelle Menard
SK- Steve Laycock
YK- Robert Smallwood

Jacobs, K. Koe and Gushue will be the favorites to qualify for the play offs, with Morris, Carruthers and Menard battling for the 4th spot.

[Resolute 14]

Ugh... that "Team Canada" thing is still so stupid.

[Mango]

Curious, but why did Kevin Koe move on from his old rink? He had already secured a spot at the Brier.

It seems so odd that John Morris was playing with Cotter one minute last season and the next minute, he grabbed Koe's guys to be part of Team Canada.

[DoubleK]

2 more teams than normal? Used to be 12, no?

[ben voyonsdonc]

Yes, I think the Yukon and Team Canada teams are new.

[KelVarnsen]

They made changes. All 3 territories can have entries now. Nunavut declined this year. They added Team Canada like said above.

[ben voyonsdonc]

I personally like the Team Canada addition. It does three things: 1) gives teams an additional reason to want to win the Brier, 2) gives an assurance that there will be at least one well known team at the Brier, and 3) lets provinces like Alberta who are super strong to have a chance to have two representatives at the Brier. With Ferbey and Martin, it was almost impossible to come out of Alberta and I think it encouraged good curlers to curl in provinces where they had a better chance.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by ben voyonsdonc

I personally like the Team Canada addition. It does three things: 1) gives teams an additional reason to want to win the Brier, 2) gives an assurance that there will be at least one well known team at the Brier, and 3) lets provinces like Alberta who are super strong to have a chance to have two representatives at the Brier. With Ferbey and Martin, it was almost impossible to come out of Alberta and I think it encouraged good curlers to curl in provinces where they had a better chance.

Point #3 is the only one with any merit. There isn't a team that has every qualified for the Brier that needed any more reason to win it.

[Arsenal14]

Originally Posted by Mango

Curious, but why did Kevin Koe move on from his old rink? He had already secured a spot at the Brier.

It seems so odd that John Morris was playing with Cotter one minute last season and the next minute, he grabbed Koe's guys to be part of Team Canada.

Before winning the Brier last year Koe had already agreed to join up with Hebert/Kennedy after the season. While winning the Brier and getting the Canada Cup/Continental Cup/Brier spots for this year was great, like most teams they are looking towards the 2018 Olympics.

Morris on the other hand was always meant to be a temporary player with Cotter in BC and I don't think he ever really resided in that province. I think prior to the announcement that Koe's team was splitting up Morris had announced he was taking this season off.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

2 more teams than normal? Used to be 12, no?

There will still be 12 teams in the main draw. They added the Team Canada, split the territories and now force several rinks to play a mini tournament to get in. It guarantees that not every province is actually represented.

[Derek Sutton]

Originally Posted by Mango

Curious, but why did Kevin Koe move on from his old rink? He had already secured a spot at the Brier.

It seems so odd that John Morris was playing with Cotter one minute last season and the next minute, he grabbed Koe's guys to be part of Team Canada.

It's been mostly addressed but what a lot of people don't realize is qualifying for the 2018 olympics has already started for the Canadian teams, it is a four year committment just to qualify. So with Kevin Martin wanting to step away, Hebert and Kennedy needed to find a place to play. As well, Koe's front end of Rycroft and Thiessen had said they were not willing to make the 4 year commitment so Koe was looking for a new front end. It just so happened that they (Koe) won the brier last year (wich was a throw away year for olympic qualifying) and qualified for the brier this year based on new changes by the CCA. You need 3/4 (Rycroft, Theisen, Simmons)of your team to stay intact to remain the same team (Tean Canada), they just needed a skip so insert John Morris.

Overall having a Team Canada I think is a good thing for sevral reasons and marketing is the biggest one. Having Glen Howard on the Brier adds and posters doesn't make much sense since he didnt qualify this year, this could really be the case for any team. This year it may have not worked out as the CCA planned, going forward though, it'll be a positive change, and the women have done this for many years.

[Dan02]

Team Canada is a nice addition, but they need to merge the territories and Ontario to get it back down to 12 teams.

[GirlySports]

why is TSN not showing the qualification tournament? They only have 5 channels.

[GirlySports]

Here's an article on the Scotties qualifying tonight

http://www.mjtimes.sk.ca/Opinion/Col...s-intriguing/1

Although it’s not going to be televised, this year’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts actually begins Thursday evening when Team Northern Ontario battles Team Northwest Territories in the first of four pre-qualification games that will determine the 12th and final qualifier for the event.

TSN is showing nothing of importance tonight

[Derek Sutton]

Though they will not be covering any of the "Relegation Round", TSN announced today that they will be having dual coverage for the afternoon and evening draws, meaning they will be brodcasting two different games on two different channels at the same time. This will be interesting and I hope they release there brodcast schedule ahead of time as this could really mess up my PVR. I also hope that this will let them reform their presentation a little bit, one thing I would like to see some change in is using different camera angles (a shot from the end so the viewer can see the sliding path/curl of the rock) and perhaps getting rid of the annoying split screen coverage they do durng the final shots, often not letting the viewer clearly see what is happening on either sheet. I would like them to do more what golf does and just replay the feed from one of the other cameras on a brief delay.

They will also be bringing in Dave Hedohin as an analyst as well for the Brier. There are not a lot of prime seats remaining for ticket purchse, I know the CCA will be looking at setting an attendance record, even the afternoon draws are looking quite full.

[DoubleK]

Got my tickets to the final.

Looking forward to this!!

[Burke Salad]

John Morris seems shady.

[Weitz]

Got some Vendor tickets to the draws on Tuesday. Excited to go!

[Frequitude]

Got my tickets for the Tuesday evening draw. Can't wait to watch Koe-Morris live.

I'll probably take in the 1-2 game as well but plan to watch the final from my couch. TSN just does too great of a job covering the sport not to.

[Resolute 14]

Tomorrow morning might be the only draw I can fit in if I choose to go. Rather impressed at how many seats are already sold for an 8:30 AM start.