The men's World Cup will be tomorrow in the middle.
It is truly fascinating to watch the interplay of the Canadian team, which so far has surpassed all others in precision. Today's game against Scotland was evenly matched and David Murdoch had some good chances, but at crucial moments Kevin Martin was more confident and made the right decisions. The Germans got their first loss and the Swiss got their first win. The Czech team first succumbed to Germany in the morning draw (missing Uli Kapp due to injury), but I didn't see the match because I spent four hours discussing the more than 50!!! modifications to the current curling rules, which are only less than a year old. The evening match between the Czechs and Australia had two parts, maybe even three. The first a cautious one, one nil to us after three ends, the second marked by a successful offensive by the Australians accompanied by our inaccuracies, and the third in which our hopes of winning returned thanks to our improved performance and a few blunders by the Australian four (Ian Palangio). In a nervous ending we did succumb, and so far two wins and three losses. There's still plenty to play against though - the Swiss and Swedes are struggling, and we should be able to beat the Chinese too. Interestingly, the return of legendary skip (Switzerland's Patrick Huerlimann - 1998 Olympic champion, Denmark's Ulrik Schmidt - three times silver at the European Championships) to the national teams in other positions is still rather embarrassing, so at this point it's hard to guess who, besides Canada, will go to the semifinals. It could still be the Czechs!
rnphoto - Scotland versus Germany