Curling Capital is in Calgary.
The entire curling world will eventually fit into one Canadian city. With two short-lived exceptions, Aberdeen and Lohja. Indeed, Calgary is the centre of the curling action this year. First, the Canadian Women's Championships, followed immediately by the famous Brier Tournament, the winner of which will represent Canada at the upcoming Men's World Championships, held where else but Calgary. That's not even close to all. A few days ago, the Canadian Mixed Doubles Championships culminated with the extra matches. In a week's time, the men's world championships will kick off, followed by two Grand Slams, and the women's world championships will round out the series. Yes, curling has moved to the province of Alberta, where in the "curling bubble" players and implementation teams are experiencing a very different competition than they have ever been used to. The regime is strict. Isolation, quarantine, temperature measurement, PCR tests, drapes, disinfection, distance observance, etc., are circumstances that are integral to the curling matches played here. This year's Brier was, from my perspective, a bit marred by the lack of tournaments played, and therefore less spacing of teams, but that was only true at the beginning. The final rounds and the superstructure offered a great experience in the form of excellent individual and team performances. After previously unsuccessful final attempts, Team Bottcher finally won, beating Team Koe in the final game. The more interesting duel, however, was the semi-final, in which Bottcher defeated Team Dunstone only by a final angle raise on five metres. Slightly overshadowed by the previous Canadian championships was the mixed doubles championship, in which the most historically "deserving" pair took the gold: Einarson, Gushue. Why? Because both were unable to play the world championships last year with their teams (both in skip position), even though they earned the right to represent with their wins at Briers and Scotties. Let's keep our fingers crossed for the Czech representatives who will still be in the fight for medals and important Olympic points at the end of the season. They are first the wheelchair athletes in Finland, then the women in Calgary and finally the mixed doubles in Scotland.
rnphoto: Einarson, Gushue - Canadian mixed doubles champions