I suppose two good aspects about curling is that there's little controversy with regards to officiating and doping like other sports and as such, the winners won it fair and square. While there hasn't been a medalist who has been stripped in these games because of doping (yet) there have been a few athletes who have been punished. But it looks like in curling, doping wouldn't help at all for performance. And there's little controversy about officiating with the odd case being whose rock is closer to the button or the replacement location of a burned stone. With all the etiquette in curling I guess the only challenge is when Team Norway tested the dress code with their fancy pants which didn't help them anyways. Will they attempt to wear shorts next time?sj-roc wrote:I wouldn't have argued over who we sent regardless of the result. We are so deep as a curling nation we prob have ten teams any of which could hold their own at the Olympics. The quality control in deciding who we send means you need sustained performance over several years and have to face a lot of other good Canadian teams to get the nod. It's tough to argue with whoever survives this battle. At the qualifier in December Jacobs went undefeated wire-to-wire against a field that featured no shortage of hardware in their trophy cases. Howard, Stoughton, Martin and Koe among them have won 12 Briers and 8 World Championships (I could add Morris's but all of his were as Martin's third before they parted ways last April).Robbie wrote:With both the men and the women winning gold in curling, I guess there's no controversy as to whether Team Martin or Team Howard should have represented the men, and whether Team Homan should have represented the women instead despite winning double Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
It should also be noted that Homan as defending champion got an automatic bye back to the Scotties this year and didn't have to win zone and provincial playdowns as is the case for the rest of the field. She also didn't have to compete against Jones who was on the Olympic track. None of this is to dismiss her laudable accomplishments but she just wasn't as road tested as Jones. She entered the Olympic qualifier and although she finished second in the round robin her record was a middling 4-3, including a 7-6 loss to first-place Jones. She lost her semi-final to Sherry Middaugh and didn't even get to face Jones again in the final that of course Jones won. As for Martin and Howard they didn't even win their provincial playdowns this season so neither of them will even be at the Brier next month. They've had outstanding runs but both will be past 50 (Howard already is) for the next Olympic cycle. I'll never say never but chances are we've already seen the last of their Olympic bids.
In some respects being so deep can be a disadvantage. Other countries where one team is head and shoulders above the rest often send this team several times over to one international tournament after another and this lets them build up experience against the rest of the world that would be handy to draw on at the Olympics. More often when Canada faces the world we end up sending a different team from one to the next so they will be one of the least experienced internationally among the contenders.
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Bronze medal match - unlike the Swiss women who were so ecstatic in winning the bronze the I can't imagine the American or Finnish men taking any consolation in winning the bronze. They might as well donate them to Team Switzerland or Team Latvia as a reward for getting so far and I'm sure will take a lot more joy in getting them. And the silver medalists might as well do the same thing too.
