Cheryl Bernard (left) and her 2010 Olympic silver medallists will battle the boys at the 2011 TSN Curling Skins Game.

Bernard and her Calgary women’s team will take on the Vancouver 2010 Olympic men’s champions from Edmonton, Team Kevin Martin, in one of the two event semifinals played January 22, 2011 at Casino Rama just outside of Barrie, Ontario.

The other semi will feature the 2010 defending champions, Team David Murdoch of Scotland, against the new world men’s champions from Edmonton, Team Kevin Koe. The two semifinal winners will compete in the final on January 23.

The Skins Game is a three-match, made-for-television competition featuring four teams in a unique style of play. Money – a total of $100,000 – is the key to scoring, and teams must either score two or more points with the hammer or steal a point to win a “skin”. The total amount of money earned determines the winner.

All three matches will be televised live in High-Definition on Canada’s TSN (The Sports Network).

“We’ve never had the opportunity to take on such a high calibre of men’s teams so we jumped at the chance to participate in the TSN Curling Skins Game,” said Bernard in a news release. “The venue, format and interaction with the fans will definitely make for a fun weekend of curling. But watch out guys – we are playing to win.”

Team Bernard is only the second women’s team to compete in the Skins Game. Two years ago, Winnipeg’s Team Jennifer Jones battled Glenn Howard at Casino Rama and were crushed, scoring just a single skin over the eight-ends of play.

Bernard’s inclusion means Team Howard will not compete in the 2011 event. Howard, who resides in nearby Midland, has been invited to the three previous Skins Games and enjoys a large local following.

It also guarantees another summer and fall of off-ice debate, regarding the ability of female curlers to compete with their male opponents. Here’s an excerpt of a recent interview between Canwest News and Team Martin third John Morris:

CANWEST: If your team, the men’s Olympic champs, played 100 games against women’s champ Anette Norberg of Sweden, how many would you win?

MORRIS: Oh, I’m going to get myself in trouble for this answer, I bet. I would say 90.

CANWEST: Why such a disparity? Why such dominance by the men?

MORRIS: Well, you can compare it to (the gender difference) in tennis or golf. First of all, the sweepers are a lot better in men’s curling. And being able to throw the rock really hard can be a big weapon. So, the advantage of sweeping and the advantage of throwing the rock harder would be enough to unbalance the scale, I guess.

The Curling News has blogged live from all three previous Curling Skins Games, providing exclusive behind-the-scenes anecdotes and photos. You can catch up on previous coverage via our blog archive, during the months of January in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

After all, you never know what you’re going to see at the Skins Game. Like this.

[Anil Mungal photo copyright 2010 The Curling News. No reproduction is permitted]

Norberg (top) and Team Ostlund (below)

When news of her Olympic team breakup came just two weeks ago, legendary Swedish women’s curling skip Anette Norberg indicated she would stay involved with her sport, and seek to nurture young talent for the future.

Norberg has taken that one step further. The two-time world and two-time defending Olympic women’s champion has formed a new team and will embark on yet another run for gold at Sochi 2014.

Norberg has joined forces with Team Cissi Ostlund, the young Swedes who lost the bronze-medal game at this year’s 2010 Ford World curling championship to hosts Canada, skipped by Jennifer Jones.

Ostlund had lost the 2010 Swedish finals to Team Norberg, but the veterans declined to compete at the worlds, preferring to focus entirely on Vancouver 2010. Ostlund and company, the 2008 world junior silver medallists, did a great job in their first adult worlds appearance and the future clearly beckoned.

But so did Norberg, who despite decades of competition and a jammed trophy case – she’s also captured seven European championship titles in her career – just doesn’t want to quit. Norberg will be 47 in 2014.

“I would like to help build a competitive Swedish team, and these girls are already well on the way,” said Norberg in a statement.

Norberg had spoken to Reuters shortly after her Olympic team breakup and gave hints that her winning confidence is still very high.

“(My team’s retirement) doesn’t really make much difference,” said Norberg at the time. “If I continue playing, I will carry on as before. I still haven’t made a decision about the future, but if I decide to continue I’m sure I can win another gold medal.”

Norberg had also spoken highly of her apparent heirs, telling Svenska Dagbladet that “There is nothing to prevent Cecilia Ostlund from being as good as we are… (if) all four stay together and make the effort required, they have absolute potential and possibility.”

Norberg now joins forces with Ostlund, Sara Carlsson and Lotta Lennartson, the girlfriend of Swedish Olympic men’s skip Niklas Edin, to represent the Karlstad Curling Club. Former Ostlund teammate Anna Domeij has left the squad and will reportedly take a break from high-performance competition.

[Anette Norberg photo by Anil Mungal, copyright The Curling News 2010. Team Ostlund photo by Victoria Times Colonist]

With hundreds of Vancouver 2010 photos pouring in from ace TCN photographer Anil Mungal, this archived pic from 2008 seems an odd one to showcase today.

The truth is, Sweden’s Niklas Edin (middle) played with Team David Murdoch not once, but twice, in the Continental Cup championships of 2007 and 2008. That’s Murdoch third Ewan MacDonald at left, and lead Euan Byers at right. He replaced regular Murdoch second Peter Smith on both of those Canadian event junkets. Played very well, too.

As the world now knows, its Team Sweden which dispatched Great Britain’s defending world champions yesterday in the Olympic tiebreaker, and meets Canada’s Team Kevin Martin in a semifinal later today, at 2pm Pacific time.

This was an epic loss for Murdoch’s men. For much of the fall the team struggled on the ice, particularly from injuries to Smith and Murdoch, and they failed to make the medal round at the European championships, after back-to-back wins in 2007 and 2008.

It was old friend Edin, who two years ago didn’t have a sniff of making it to the Olympics – and who still likes to say that his team is simply building for Sochi 2014 – who took Murdoch’s 20009 Euro title.

Then, the “Scottish Brits” started to turn it around. A qualifying paycheque at a Capital One Grand Slam event was followed up by that popular win at the Casino Rama Skins Game. This made for a great January.

Then it was off to Calgary for pre-Olympic training, on specialty ice made by Olympic ice technician Hans Wuthrich (which resulted in a formal letter being sent to Wuthrich by the Canadian Curling Association) and with special stones actually shipped in from Scotland.

But it was not meant to be. Edin’s young troops manhandled Murdoch in the very first match 10 days ago, and then withstood a strong Scottish comeback yesterday afternoon to pip the lads in the extra end.

And only Murdoch and Byers, the holdovers from the 2006 team at Turin, will be able to say – in time – which Olympic Games feels worse.

Is it winning a bunch in row only to lose your last four games (and a medal) a la Turin, or scrapping back and forth through the round-robin only to lose a chance at the medal round altogether, as happened in Vancouver?

One thing is certain: the CAN-GBR round-robin tilt was a barnburner, and fans may feel deprived of a semifinal barnburner as the Murdoch-Martin history is well known. In contrast, the Canadians have simply mopped the floor with the Swedes in their last two matchups, by scores of 7-3 and 9-1.

No wonder the Canadians are confident.

[CCA photo by Michael Burns]

Olympic curling fans took note when Thomas Dufour’s French team appeared for this morning’s game against Norway wearing black armbands.

The team reports this is in memory of one of France’s future curling stars, a young woman named Solène Coulet, who died on Saturday, Feb. 20.

The news is shocking, and our heart goes out to her family, teammates and many friends.

Coulot made her debut for France just last season at not one, but two world championships. She first appeared as third stone for her sister Marie at the 2009 World Junior championships at Vancouver in March, one of the test events for these 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

Just a month later she again represented France along with her brother, Wilfred, at the World Mixed Doubles at Cortina, Italy in April (photo above).

Her team was scheduled to represent France again at next month’s 2010 World Juniors, in Flims, Switzerland.

UPDATE: The Curling News has now learned that her death is an apparent suicide.

Just a day prior to her death, she wrote on her Facebook page:

Un jour nous prenons conscience que nous avons franchi le point de non-retour, ce moment où l’on ne peut plus revenir en arrière. Ce moment où l’on se rend compte qu’on a laissé passer sa chance…

One day we’ll realize that we passed the point of no return, this moment where one cannot return back. That moment where we realize we missed a chance…

RIP to French national team competitor Solène Coulot, who has left us… at only 20 years of age.

[WCF photo of Wilfred and Solène Coulot by Mario Facchini/Newspower]

Good Olympic morning to you all.

So, we’re one week down and another week to go. What is up with God’s Own Sport? We suggest three things to do, and all involve reading or watching…

• Canadians should consider APTN coverage. The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network is a member of Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, and that means viewers can watch coverage of curling games in the Cree language, as well as in French and English. TCN publisher George Karrys wrote this story last week, which highlighted the coverage being provided by APTN’s English-language crew, pictured at left. Arnold Asham (left) and two-time world champion Al “The Iceman” Hackner (right) have teamed with veteran Keith McMahon to deliver some good commentary and good fun, too.

Says The Iceman:

This a fun learning experience, having never done this kind of commentating before. I have no problem understanding the play, but it’s how to convey that knowledge the right way at the right time that’s tough to get. Being with Arnold is always a blast. Good times.

You can watch CAN vs USA right now (Monday 9am-12pm PT) on either CTV, V or NBC’s USA Network… or online on CTVOlympics.ca… or you can head over to APTN to watch these three fellows commentate on the SWE vs SUI match.

• Follow our most awesome Twitter feed for much, much more. Recent tweets include: some cool videos to watch, including  Jennifer Jones running wild in Vancouver with a TV microphone; a how-to by AP and January’s outdoor curling in Scotland; exclusive photos from the Vancouver Olympic centre; more on Norway’s pants (of course); stories in other languages; great quotes; TV figures and more!

• Here’s a new Sun Media column from gk, attempting to summarize everything that’s happened so far. Nice try, actually!

More later!

[APTN photo by Chantelle Ducharme. Click to view larger.]

You might be wondering… where are our Olympic curling previews?

Admit it. You just might be thinking: how can The Curling News, founded in 1957 and world-reknowned for decades, possibly claim to be number one in terms of All Things Curling™ without publishing the ultimate Olympic curling primer?

We’ve got two answers for you.

First: if you don’t read the actual hard-copy, print edition of The Curling News… you lose. As we have mentioned more than a few times before, the multitude of free content you see on our thousands of blog pages, on our explosive Twitter feed (with stuff added multiple times daily), our Facebook group page and so on is… exactly that: free content… and it’s far from all that we have to offer.

For the complete package, you simply must read the newspaper. There is special, print-only, proprietary info in there. And the February 2010 issue comes with the Olympic curling primer you want.

Second: for the first time in our 53-year history, we have printed stories in a language other than English and French. Joining French in the very special February Olympic issue are team previews in the language of each and every competing nation!

Chinese. Danish. German, for both Germany and Switzerland. Japanese (click image to increase size). Norwegian. Swedish. And even Russian.

In celebration of the Vancouver 2010 curling event – in celebration of international curling’s greatest moment – we now present you with the online version of these international language previews. Simply head to the homepage of our website and click on the special banner indicating Olympic Previews in 9 Languages.

However, if you want to read these previews in English, plus read our previews on teams Canada, Great Britain and the United States, you’ll just have to grab a copy of The Curling News.

And we invite you to click here.

On with the Games!

Here is a first look at Team Canada, men’s version, on the ice at the Vancouver Olympic Centre.

In The Curling News photo at left, skip Kevin Martin (left) and alternate Adam Enright prepare to keep the path clean for John Morris as the first of two practice days winds down.

“Today was about getting used to the building and really getting that Olympic feel,” Martin told CTVOlympics.ca afterwards. “I was here about 10-15 minutes early to take in the building. Every building is different so I wanted to get a feel without playing a game.”

“It was moving really well, at least four and a half feet,” said Martin. “It was mostly moving late and it was pretty finicky with weight.”

While the team eased into things on Sunday, they plan to get in a more structured session on Monday.

“Today was more mechanical for the guys. They were throwing well and getting comfortable,” said Martin. “Tomorrow (Monday), we’ll do more sweeping and game situations.”

[Click on image to increase size. Copyright owned by The Curling News (2010)]

The Danes have arrived in Vancouver!

Here’s second Lars Vilandt – who also works for the Danish Curling Association – with the weight of the Olympic world on his shoulders.

The Danes are a tad late arriving due to their national championships, which were held last weekend to declare the Danish representatives for the worlds in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy in April.

Vilandt’s team, skipped by veteran Ulrik Schmidt, won the championship.

The Danes won’t be staying in the Olympic village too long – soon they are off to nearby Langley, BC for training on Feb. 11 and 13, returning to Vancouver on the 12th for the Opening Ceremonies (but of course).

Included in their warm-ups will be a friendly exhibition match against Marla Mallet and her 2009 B.C. women’s champions, who lost the final to repeat Canadian winner Jennifer Jones. That game takes place tomorrow, Feb. 11 at the Langley Curling Club at 8:00pm.

Another exhibition game is scheduled for 3:00pm on Feb. 13 against the BC junior men’s champions, the Tyler Klymchuk squad from Langley. Team Denmark will be available to meet the public and sign autographs an hour before that match, at 2:00pm.

[Lars Vilandt photo, click to enlarge]

So far, the award for Olympic Curling Social Media Wizardry goes to Team USA.

Second thrower Nicole Joraanstad of Debbie McCormick’s women’s team has been all over the Twitterverse and Facebook, showing photos and sharing newsbytes as her squad prepares for action to start next week. Alternate Tracy Sachtjen has also been an accomplished photo bug.

On the men’s squad, alternate Chris Plys has, predictably, been the go-to-guy for digital updates… but coach Phill Drobnick isn’t far behind.

Here’s a montage of two pics taken by Joranstaad: at left is her squad showing off some Team USA cheering gear, which was probably left in their condo apartments upon their arrival, and at right is the first look at their on-ice uniforms, as they headed onto the ice yesterday at Richmond CC for their first British Columbia practice session.

One is fun, the other more serious.

And as any of these girls will tell you, a balance between the two is probably the best elixir for curling success.

[Photos courtesy Nicole Joraanstad – click to increase size]

It could have been bobsleigh.

It could have been hockey.

But in the end, The Simpsons will be curling… at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, no less.

And The Curling News has the first publicity release artwork.

The story is actually quite old by now. But if you haven’t heard, we’ll start at the beginning.

It was first revealed back in the summer of 2009 that The Simpsons, America’s longest-running TV comedy show (currently celebrating its 20th anniversary) had been researching and writing an Olympic episode in which Homer and Marge Simpson team up to represent the U.S. at this month’s Olympic curling competition.

The writers even visited a California curling club to experience the sport firsthand.

A second story from the Associated Press, in January, revisited the story.

Now The Curling News was the first media organization to receive the first publicity image of the episode Boy Meets Curl, which airs February 14 at 8:00pm ET on FOX (in the U.S.) and Global (in Canada). Click on the image to increase its size.

Another image now making the rounds shows U.S. sports TV announcer Bob Costas leaning into the frame.

Speaking personally, we can’t wait. This might end up representing curling’s high-water pop-culture mark in a season that has been quite full of such highlights.

[The Simpsons TM and © 2010 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.]

An offbeat tale for a Thursday morning, but with potentially serious questions at the end. And we’re looking for your answers.

Guess what? Dutch curling is having a good year.

The national women’s team earned silver in the B-Pool at the European Championships in Aberdeen last month, just missing a trip to Swift Current, Sask. for the Ford Worlds (that honour went to another country of curling minnows, Latvia).

The national men’s team won the Euro B-pool, scoring gold, and have qualified for the A-division at next year’s championship in Champery, Switzerland. They too missed out on a spot in this season’s worlds (in Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy) when Denmark – a team headed to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics – beat them in a do-or-die challenge series.

Now, we’re not saying that teeming hordes of orange-clad Holland sports fans are descending on curling championships to cheer on their teams. Not yet, anyway. Despite the fine work of TCN photo editor Anil Mungal (above), this remains a dream for Dutch curlers.

But we, The Curling News, apparently could not sit idly by while Dutch sports fans questioned the presence of curling in the Olympic family. So we opened out big mouths – in English – in the comments section of this Dutch blogpost, and promptly engaged in some lively debate with the Orange Crush.

A couple of Dutchmen have stood up in support of our opinion – along with another Canuck, “The Curling Guru” (no surprise there) – but we throw this debate open to you, the ultimate curling fans.

Should curling be an Olympic sport?

Should Dutch sports fans have a better appreciation of all Olympic sports, particularly when their countrymen are starting to achieve tangible results in those sports?

Should we have apologized to Frans? Should Frans apologize to us?

And perhaps the biggest question of all: do curling fans have a role to play on the blogs, chat groups and online portals of the world, as Vancouver 2010 puts our sport under a massive microscope every four years?

Please use the Comments section of this blogpost to give us your thoughts. And if anyone feels up to commenting at the Dutch blogpost itself, you can find it here …

GUELPH, Ontario – Defending world curling champion skip David Murdoch of Lockerbie blasted Scottish authorities for today’s decision to cancel the Grand Match, the massive outdoor bonspiel which had excited curling’s home country.

“Quite frankly, it’s ridiculous,” Murdoch told The Curling News from Canada, where his 2010 Great Britain Olympic team is competing at The Swiss Chalet National, a Grand Slam of Curling event.

“The world’s turning into a strange place, isn’t it? You can’t do anything without someone saying you can’t do something.”

The coldest winter in decades had fed Scottish excitement over the possibility of the first Grand Match – featuring thousands of curlers playing outdoors on a Scottish loch – to take place since 1979. Mild winter weather had killed 30 years of previous effort to organize the Match.

Friday afternoon, officials announced the cancellation of the event, based on health and safety  – and insurance – concerns.

“The ice is thick enough, it would probably take a truck to go over the top of it to crack,” said Murdoch, whose team had a 2-2 win/loss record heading into their final pool match on Friday night.

“It’s just disappointing. It’s a great opportunity for curling, the Olympics are coming, curling is in the headlines, and it’s the Grand Match… what a spectacle. It’s just one of the best things people could ever see.

“The chance is there, but obviously some people are too scared to let it happen.”

The Friday announcement from the Royal Caledonian Curling Club (RCCC) said “Following extensive discussions with a wide variety of interested parties including Central Scotland Police, The Fire and Rescue Service, the Scottish Ambulance Service, and Stirling Council it has not proved possible to address all health and safety concerns and receive the full backing of the Emergency Services within the timescales involved.”

Team Murdoch will also compete the following weekend at a made-for-television “skins” curling tournament in a large casino just north of Toronto, before heading home to compete in his Scottish men’s championships. Then it’s back to Canada for a training camp just prior to Vancouver 2010.

“I know they’re scared of what might happen but 30 years ago there weren’t any disasters,” said Murdoch.

“It will probably be another 30 years before we get another chance, now.”

[Capital One photo by Anil Mungal]

Remember the story of NFL superstar Vernon Davis, who tried curling and rather enjoyed it? (AP photo above)

Remember our story on how this was indicative of the quadrennial excitement over curling at the Olympic Winter Games?

Guess what? USA Curling is still on that promotional roll… AP is now reporting that Davis has been appointed an honorary captain for the U.S. men’s curling team next month at the Vancouver Olympics.

The San Francisco 49ers tight end, who last Sunday tied Antonio Gates‘ NFL record for touchdowns by a tight end with 13, shot several curling public service announcements this week at 49ers team headquarters and with the San Francisco Bay Area Curling Club at the San Jose Sharks’ practice ice. Those PSAs will be used at curling clubs around the country to help promote the sport’s growth.

Until next time… good couch curling!