Bringing it on home

Happy Canada Day, folks!

Well, okay, it’s actually on July 1, but what the hey.

There’s all kinds of stuff going on’ round the country, and particularly in Ottawa, and this also means it’s time once again for the oft-annoying, test-your-knowledge Canada Day trivia questions to start showing up in all the newspapers (although some stuff is quite fun).

However, a hefting of the beer mug to Osprey Media, whose 2006 round of trivia leads off with a curling query:

The Labatt Brier Tankard is the former name of the:
a) National Ringette Championships
b) hockey team of workers at Labatt breweries in Newfoundland
c) Canadian men's curling championship trophy
d) park that houses the national rugby tournaments

Now for the subject of this post: guess what... we have another Brad Gushue item today. And this one comes directly from Mr. Fun himself, lead stone Jamie Korab:

Hey All,
Our curling team has a print, Bringing it on Home, that goes on sale today. David Hoddinott (local artist) has painted a pretty cool picture of our Olympic team. The prints are a limited edition that have been numbered and hand signed by the team, all 9,990 of them. The prints are on sale right now at Canadian Tire stores in NL, but they can also be ordered through our website or through this site. Check it out!

We did, Jamie, great stuff. One question: how's your wrist, dude, after signing 9,900 prints?!

In addition:

• Ice techs from curling, hockey, figure and speed skating have been brought in to ensure the Vancouver 2010 venues have optimum ice conditions. Problem is, some of the venues aren’t planned out very well for this consideration and money is super-tight. The Vancouver Province (subscription) quotes VANOC guy Dan Moro:

[Ensuring ice quality] will cost more, in some ways. It may mean putting vestibules on our buildings, and it may mean those facilities that don't have a filtration system – if they need it – we may have to put these in our capital budget.
We're trying to keep costs down, but we are in a bottom-up budget process right now and are identifying those things that may not have been captured before and putting together our priority list.
When you walk in the Coliseum (hosting the figure-skating and short-track speed-skating events), you're right on top of the ice surface. That means that if you're maintaining a 35-per-cent humidity inside the building and all of a sudden you open the doors and let all those people in... all the air pressure pushes down... and it changes the humidity.

Don’t scrimp on the curling venue, guys. With all due respect to the other ice sports, you ain’t seen problematic sport ice until you’ve seen irate curlers... and curling fans.

• Sarnia, Ontario has been awarded the 2007 Kia Cup, the Ontario men's championship...

• Finally, appropos for Canada Day, here’s a cool story about an Italian immigrant who, like so many others, appeared to be shut out of his chosen career despite strong international – but not Canadian – work experience. Fortunately, his tale has a happy ending, with a curling twist to boot... just one question: how did this fellow get so thin on a pasta diet? Someone get him a square meal!

BTW, Donato will probably be glued to a TV today as Italy take on the Ukraine – who will be attempting to prove they are not weak! – on the footy pitch. Gooool!