[ritchiebaby]

Today's Results
Scotland 10 Poland 5, England 11 Belarus 2.

Both home teams finished off with a win and finished with 5 wins and 4 losses, England being ranked 5th and Scotland 7th. Scotland and Poland were tied at 5-5 with two ends to go but the Scots scored a 2 and a 3 to run out "convincing" winners. England were much more controlled, scoring in 4 of the 6 ends played.

[St Charles Owl]

Ok, so neither team progressed but both ended with winning records, not too bad.

Question for you Ritchie, considering this sport is relatively small, why did they not hold all the various championships in the same venue or at least the same city? Would have been much more cost effective to do that surely??

[ritchiebaby]

Quarter-final Results
USA 6 Canada 9, Russia 4 Hungary 10, Estonia 3 Sweden 8, Norway 6 Denmark 4.

Semi-final Games
Canada v Sweden, Norway v Hungary.
These games are played tomorrow morning with the Medals being decided in the late afternoon.

A clue for SCO - Sponsorship
As ever, sponsorship of major sporting events is key to their continued success. Ford of Canada have been involved in World Curling Championships sponsorship for the last 20 years and the World Curling Federation agreed in 2005 that Ford sponsor the men's and women's championships alternately with Canada hosting the men's in odd-numbered years and the women's in even-numbered years. The rest of the world get what's left to share amongst themselves. Curling is a major sport in Canada and they are the Australians of curling.   Say no more.

The current championships are held in the same city at the same time, but it's fair to say that they don't garner the same level of attention and therefore attraction to potential sponsors.

[ritchiebaby]

Semi-final Results - Canada 6 Sweden 8, Norway 6 Hungary 9.

Medal games - Hungary 6 Sweden 5, Norway 9 Canada 4.
In the Gold Medal game Hungary scored 4 shots in 3 ends to edge into a 2 shot lead over Sweden after 4 ends and held their nerve to stay in control right to the final end.
Norway scored a 3 and a 4 in the first two ends to kill the Bronze Medal game off right away and never allowed Canada back in, leading to a concession in the last end.

Final standings
GOLD Hungary (Dorottya Palancsa and Zsolt Kiss)
SILVER Sweden (Camilla Johansson and Per Noreen)
BRONZE Norway (Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten)

[St Charles Owl]

Hungary would have been a country I would never had thought even played the sport of curling, and here they are winning the whole thing!!!

Great thread Ritchie!!

[ritchiebaby]

GOLD - Hungary - Zsolt Kiss and Dorottya Palancsa (2013 winners)

SILVER - Sweden - Camilla Johansson and Per Noreen (2012 and 2014 runners-up)

BRONZE - Norway - Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten

SCO - You wouldn't normally think of Hungary as a curling country, but there are unlikelier ones than that. Think of Israel, US Virgin Islands and Qatar!

Thanks too for your kind comments and encouragement on both threads. Thanks also to all of you who took an interest in my curling threads. All being well, I'll be back in September for the World Mixed Curling Championships.