World Cup of Curling

So last night Beth, my dad, my Papa and I fought traffic to head out to Mississauga for the opening draw of the World Cup of Curling. As mentioned, this is basically the pre-Games warm-up tournament, featuring the ‘Top 5’ Canadian Men’s Teams and the 9 ‘Foreign’ teams that will be at the 2010 Games.

The opening draw was surprisingly well attended given the GTA’s normal apathy towards ‘big event’ curling. I’d estimate the Hershey Centre was almost half full, probably putting the crowd at a little better than 2,000 people.

I think one of the nicest things about curling is how accessible it really still is. Last night only served to remind me of that fact, as we were able to slide down to the 1st row and be right on top of the action. You’re close enough to hear every conversation on the ice, and it gives you a chance to take quite a few pictures:



The biggest thrill of the night was the quick chance we had to meet Brad Gushue. All teams signed autographs post-game, but he’s the one we went down for. This pics in the photo-stream, but I thought it deserved special re-posting here.

In terms of the actual curling action, the Canadian teams ‘won’ the night 4-1, with the aforementioned Gushue being the only Canadian defeat. The most interesting win was the Ferbey game, where the Chinese ran out of time with a full end still to play.