[ritchiebaby]

The women have had their say and now it's the turn of the men.

The Ford World Men's Curling Championships are being held from Saturday 28 March to Sunday 5 April in Halifax, Nova Scotia at the Scotiabank Centre. This is a multi-use arena and in 2014 has hosted events like the Black Sabbath 13 Tour, the Davis Cup World Group Play-offs and the UFC Fight Night 54, but it's primarily used for ice hockey and basketball.

The twelve teams taking part in this year’s event are Canada, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Russia, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and USA.

Defending champions Norway are represented by last year's title-winning team, led by the highly experienced Thomas Ulsrud who is both the oldest skip and oldest athlete competing at this year’s event, aged 42.

Scotland is skipped by Ewan MacDonald, who, with three world titles to his name, is Scotland's most successful international curler, although this is only his second appearance as skip. The full squad is Ewan MacDonald (Fourth, Skip), Duncan Fernie (Third, Vice-Skip), Ruairidh Greenwood (Second), Euan Byers (Lead) and David Murdoch (Alternate).

Sweden's 2013 world champion, Niklas Edin, leads a changed team from that which he led to the world crown then. His team includes Oskar Eriksson at third, who skipped Sweden to silver medals at last year's Championship in China.

Canada is represented by an experienced team, with third John Morris (2008), second Carter Rycroft (2010) and lead Nolan Thiessen (2010) all with previous men’s world titles to their name. They are skipped this year by Pat Simmons, who along with Rycroft and Thiessen, earned Canada a fourth place finish at this event last year in Beijing, China.

[Lord Snooty]

Has the Skip, David Murdoch, been ousted, Ritchie? Is this some big news story that the British media have missed out on? Or are we talking football style squad rotation?

Any tv coverage? I keep missing it when it's on Eurosport.

[St Charles Owl]

Two years ago in my previous job I recruited Brent Pierce as Sales Manager for British Columbia.  Below is his wiki page and as you will see he was the skip for Canada in 2000 when they won the Gold Medal at the World Championships.  He had some interesting stories to tell about his travels while he played at that level but he only plays in local leagues now I believe.  His biggest regret was not making it to the Olympics.  

Unfortunately he wasn't a Gold Medal caliber sales guy and only lasted 9 months in the job before he quit!!!

Brent Pierce Wiki

[ritchiebaby]

No drama with the curling team, Snooty. Move along now, there's nothing to see here.

Ewan MacDonald's team won the Scottish Championships in February, beating David Murdoch's team in the final. It's as simple as that. David Reid, on the right, has been replaced by David Murdoch as alternate player.




As far as I know the only coverage available here will be on the World Curling Federation website - http://www.worldcurling.org/wmcc2015 - and their Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/WorldCurlingFederation?fref=nf .

SCO, knowing the Canadian psyche, he would think he was obviously the best man for the job and convince you of that as well.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland start their campaign with 2 matches tomorrow, the first against Italy, who are returning to the world stage for the first time since they hosted the Championships in 2010. They are a clear and present danger in that they finished fourth in last year's European Championships. The Scots also have to beware of their evening opponents, Japan, represented by the team who finished fifth in last year's World Championships.

On Sunday, Scotland play Finland, who are similarly ranked to Italy based on results over the past 6 seasons.

Not too difficult a start, then, but Scotland still have to be on their mettle and guard against a tendency to be caught out on games against "lesser" teams.

---

The official Scotland team photograph


Ewan MacDonald, Duncan Fernie, Ruairidh Greenwood, Euan Byers and David Murdoch

[ritchiebaby]

The "lesser" teams have started very well against Scotland. These teams have every right to be there challenging the "establishment" and it is 4 against 4 with 2 stones each. It'll be interesting to see how the other teams approach their games against them.

First of all, Italy traded shot for shot with Scotland to tie the game 5-5 after the regulation 10 ends. In the extra end, Scotland with last stone were short, handing the Italians a win. Then, after a tight game for 7 ends, Japan scored 5 shots in the 8th by taking the Scots last stone out, prompting the concession from Scotland.

Winless Scotland are bottom of the table with Finland, who they play in the afternoon session and the result should be available late tonight. Another defeat would mean that their tournament would be virtually over before it began.

[ritchiebaby]

Well, what do you know? Scotland have come away with yet another defeat, losing 7-10 to Finland after an extra end. They replaced Duncan Fernie at 3rd with David Muirhead and at least made a fight of it. Finland were leading 7-4 with two ends to go and Scotland scored a 2 and a 1 to tie the game, but all to no avail. That almost certainly puts the Scots out of it with 8 games still to go.

Only one thing might just save us and that is a thunderbolt from slim chance that the teams fighting it out for the fourth qualifying position will drop points all over the place, letting us sneak in unnoticed.   Currently the table is led by Canada and Italy with 2 wins out of 2 and Japan and Czech Republic with 2 wins out of 3.

Tomorrow Scotland play Norway and Czech Republic.

[ritchiebaby]

If I had stupidly thought that Scotland couldn't get any worse, they went ahead and proved that they could. Fair enough, it was against Norway, the current champions, but even so losing a 6, yes six, at the second end must be a new low for an established curling nation. Norwegian skip, Thomas Ulsrud, was left with a simple take-out with his last stone, to virtually finish the game with 8 ends still to play. The game eventually ended with an 11-6 win for Norway. 

Thankfully, I don't know the details, but Scotland must have been doing something strange tactically or playing extremely poor shots, perhaps even both, for such a result. Remember that Japan took a 5 off us in the second session, so it's not a one-off to have one disastrous end during a game. To put it in perspective, Norway's biggest end against them is a 2. Switzerland and Japan have both lost a 3 at their worst. Amazingly, Canada lost a 3 and a 4 in the same game and still managed to win 11-10 against USA! 

On to tonight's game against Czech Republic - another game, another loss! Although to be fair, we did seem to compete all the way through. The disappointing thing is that we were in control for the early part of the game, but lost both the 7th and 8th ends with 2 twos. Not only did go from 5-3 up to 5-7 down, but we also handed last stone on the last end to the Czech Republic. From then on, we were forced to chase the game, hoping for a slip-up from them and eventually lost 6-8.

This result leaves Scotland adrift at the bottom of the table, still with no wins after 5 games. Canada lead with 4 wins from 4 games, followed by Norway and Switzerland with 3 wins from 4 games and Czech Republic, Finland and Japan on 3 wins from 5 games.

Scotland's next two games are against Russia and USA, both teams being on 1 win, so we might, just might, manage to get our first win tomorrow.

[St Charles Owl]

Very disappointing so far!! Losing a 6 I would imagine is relatively rare, can't even imagine what the Scots last stone was but the aim of getting two or three of their stones out of the way would surely have been easy enough as the scoring area must have been packed with their stones!!!

[ritchiebaby]

Disappointing is much too mild a word, SCO! It sounds as though the damage was done earlier in the end - Scotland draw one in, Norway hit it out and roll across behind the guard, repeat until a big end builds up. By the time Ewan MacDonald came to play, he would have been trying to get his stone hidden behind their counting stones. He obviously didn't manage it, leaving Ulsrud with a relatively easy shot for the 6.