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A new WCF executive has been elected. The championship continues.

I'd rather see more curling than participate in some of the somewhat "hot needle" proposed changes to the curling rules, but it can't be helped. So the inordinately long meetings have a concrete result: the new WCF president is Kate Caithness (Scotland), the vice-president is Patrick Hurlimann (Switzerland). An American controls the money, with a Swede, a Dane, a Korean and a Canadian also on the board. Whether this will benefit the development remains to be seen. Not much is likely to change. Strengthening the Swiss position in the WCF also means strengthening the position of the marketing company Infront and perhaps a slightly more modern approach to the use of some PR tools. Conversely, we will probably continue to struggle with the professionalism of webmastering (more and more representatives are complaining about the WCF website), as nothing will change in this position. I predict some of the new rule changes will have a short life (time-out), while other proposals will lead to never-ending discussion (eight or ten endings, one hack or two, etc). The position of a new official focused on curling development remains an important topic. Everyone seems to have high hopes for this person, and I'm curious to see who the WCF will announce as the new "CDO" in about two or three weeks. From what I've seen on the ice, Canada, aside from a wobble with Germany, is heading into the semis and the Scots and Norwegians are on track as well. The Japanese are way down. The middle is strong and there's no telling who will be in the top half and who will be in the bottom half. There have been problems with the timing system. Spectator numbers are down. Everybody is still under the influence of the Vancouver experience and it is generally agreed that curling at the Olympics was a phenomenal success in terms of the public presentation of our sport.rn

photo: new WCF president Kate Caithness on the ice