Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Tour thoughts from week five













As CTVOlympics reports, it’s another week come and gone on the World Curling Tour.

Digging deeper, one might agree with Lydon Little that BC teams shouldn’t be overlooked heading into the pre-Trials “Road to the Roar” next month in Prince George.

Particularly Kelowna’s Bob Ursel, who has made it to two finals in his two events this season, and who won yesterday’s playoff matches in Vancouver by scores of 7-1, 6-1 and 7-1.

And yesterday’s victory by Jennifer Jones (Calgary Herald photo by Christina Ryan) indicates she has indeed shrugged off last year’s fourth-place worlds finish in Ganeneung, Korea.

She’s been an outright winner in all three tournaments since: last fall’s Grey Power Players’ Championship; the Eurotour opener in Oslo, Norway (beating Olympic champ Anette Norberg) and now the first women’s Grand Slam of the season (beating world champ Bingyu Wang).

Jones has also overtaken the struggling Shannon Kleibrink – now oh-fer in three tournaments this fall – in the Order of Merit standings.

Meanwhile, Brad Gushue’s run of tournament wins came to an abrupt halt, but not before he defeated Kevin Martin for the second time this season. The Gushues ended up losing a C-qualifier to – guess who? – ex-teammate Chris Schille.

As for Martin, and Glenn Howard, neither team has won an event this season. Hmm.

No comments: