Quebec take 6th Annual US Open in Utica, NY

Benoit Lessard, Carl Marquis, Johanne Daly and Denis Grenier
with coach Germain Tremblay
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Ben Lessard skipped his Quebec teammates to a 7-0 sweep of the competition at the 6th Annual US Open in Utica, NY this weekend. The win, their first since the 2010 Cathy Kerr. builds on their 3rd place in Richmond earlier this month. Lessard, Carl Marquis, Johanne Daly and Denis Grenier play out of the Magog CC under coach Germain Tremblay. Their regular 2nd, Sébastien Boisvert, will rejoin the team at the Cathy Kerr.

Bruce Cameron's Ottawa team (5-2) were 2nd and Ken Gregory's Bradford squad (4-3) were 3rd.

The two USA teams finished a combined 5-9 and will be hoping that the rebuilt programme will make enough progress to avoid relegation at next February's Worlds.

Final standings after Round Robin

Quebec 7-0
Ottawa: 5-2
Bradford: 4-3
Toronto: 3-4 *defeated Nova Scotia and USA #1 head to head
Nova Scotia: 3-4 *defeated USA #1 head to head
USA #1: 3-4
USA #2: 2-5
Can/Am: 1-6

You can see some familiar faces in this video from YNN.


Full line scores are available HERE. The Draw Schedule and Rules are HERE

Canadian Nationals Day 5 - Draw 8 - Nova Scotia topple Alberta

Full line scores and statistics and tables are available on our website.

Alberta and Nova Scotia, the top two teams at this year's Canadian National Championships in Edmonton, faced off this morning in a game that will likely decide who finishes in first place after round robin play.

Nova Scotia 2nd Trendal Hubley-Bolivar

photo - Bevan Sauks.

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Nova Scotia had the better of the game from the outset, though an unfortunate error by one of the volunteers meant that one of their rocks, which was to have been measured for a second point, was removed. By rule Nova Scotia had the option of taking their single or replaying the end. They took the point, and continued with another steal in the 2nd. A 3 just before the break for a 5-1 lead led to a comment of "impressive draw weight" by Alberta coach Andy Jones.

Nova Scotia continued the pressure with a steal of a single in the 5th for a 6-1 lead and though Alberta scored in ends 6 and 7, they saw their unbeaten record slip away 6-3 when their attempt to lay 3 failed and Nova Scotia were not forced to throw their last rock.

Host Team substitute Marie Laframboise 

photo - Andrew Pizzinato

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Manitoba guaranteed their playoff spot by denting the Host Team's ambitions with an 8-6 win. The game was not without its drama though as Hosts fought back from an 8-1 deficit. just as Korea had done against Canada at the Paralympics final. Hosts face Alberta in the final draw, and must win and BC lose for a chance at a tie-break. Host Team lead Shawna Walsh was unable to play, and was replaced by Marie Laframbois from the player pool.

Saskatchewan's skip Darwin Bender

photo - Bevan Sauks.

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Quebec's late run fizzled in a loss to Saskatchewan 7-4. Their playoff hopes died when they gave up a steal of 3 in the 7th. BC, the only top four team in real danger at the start of play, crushed Ontario 13-3. They posted 3's with hammer and stole 4 in the 6th and final end.

Northern Ontario 3rd Mark Wherrett 

photo - Bevan Sauks.

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Newfoundland-Labrador, who came so agonisingly close to their first win last night, were unable to maintain their momentum, losing 9-1 to Northern Ontario, who can force a tie-break if they beat BC in the afternoon draw. 

Results after Draw 8 of 9

Nova Scotia        7 1
Alberta            7 1
Manitoba           6 2
British Columbia   5 3
Northern Ontario   4 4

Host Team          4 4
Saskatchewan       3 5
Quebec             3 5
Ontario            1 7
NFLD and Labrador  0 8

Aileen Nielson captures Scottish title

Team Nielson - Scottish Champions 2011

Michael McCreadie, Ian Donaldson, Tom Killin and Aileen Neilson
photo by Laura Morris via the Skip Cottage blog

Aileen Neilson completed a very successful season with a win over her national teammate Gregor Ewan in Sunday's final of the Scottish Wheelchair Curling Championship in Aberdeen. It was sweet revenge for Neilson, who lost 6-5 to Ewan in the British Open final last November.

The current Scottish national side was divided between the two finalists, with Aileen joined by Tom Killin, plus Michael McCreadie and Ian Donaldson. Gregor Ewan played with national teammate Mike McKenzie, plus Jackie Cayton and Jim Gault.

It was a cagey game, with three blanks before Ewan put the first point on the board just before the break. Whatever was in Team Neilson's water bottles, it worked as they returned to score 4 in the 5th then stole 3 more in the 6th on their way to a 7-3 win.

You can find semi-final and final line scores HERE.

Scottish Wheelchair Curling Championships this weekend

Eleven teams are competing at the Scottish Wheelchair Curling Championships this weekend in Aberdeen, and new British National Team Coach Tony Zummack is in Scotland watching the action. He is on a scouting visit and also looking at accommodation for a more permanent move which he hopes will be in May.

Tony Zummack with Lynne MacKenzie, the Royal Club's National Coaching Officer
photo courtesy Bob Cowan

The teams played their round robin games from two groups, with the top two teams in each group playing in Sunday's semi-final/final.

After round robin play, Aileen Neilson with World silver medallist teammate Tom Killin, along with Michael McCreadie and Ian Donaldson will face a team skipped by Allan Spence.

Aileen's Prague teammates Gregor Ewan and Michael MacKenzie, with Jim Gault and Jackie Cayton, will face Jim Sellar's team in the other semi-final.

You can see results HERE and also view a large selection of photos from the event on Bob Cowan's Skip Cottage blog.

Cormack beats Armstrong in opening draw of BC Provincials

Team Canada skip Jim Armstrong faced National Champion and ex-Team Canada teammate Gary Cormack in the first round of the three team BC Provincials at the Kimberley CC this afternoon.

Cormack stole single points in the first two ends, then gave up single point steals in ends 4 and 5 to fall behind 3-2 after 5. He then levelled the scores with a single in the 6th, stole one in the 7th and two more in the 8th.

The final commentary entry on Playdowns.com said: Armstrong's final rock is not hard enough to clear the house and Cormack ends the game with 2.

Armstrong is playing with his TC 3rd Darryl Neighbour, past TC skip Chris Daw and 3 time national champion Jacqui Roy.

Gary Cormack has Vince Miele and two of last year's BC champions, Frank LaBounty at 3rd and lead Alison Duddy.

Armstrong is back on the ice 10AM tomorrow morning when he plays Bob Mcdonald. Mcdonald, playing with Team Canada's Sonja Gaudet, Bill Lindstrom and Samantha Sui, plays Cormack at 3pm.

Results and line scores are available HERE

British wheelchair curling funding cut in half *UPDATED*

The BBC reports that British Government funding through UK Sport for Olympic and Paralympic programs, while showing an overall increase, has concentrated on sports where there is the best likelihood of medals. Wheelchair curling has had its funding reduced from UKP 450,000 (C$ 711,000) to UKP 223,000 (C$ 356,000).

British performances have fallen below expectations at the last Worlds and Paralympics, and that disappointment is demonstrated in the 48% reduction in funding over the next four years. That is not to say that additional funds would not be made available if the team started appearing on the podium again, as a major source of funding comes from the National Lottery, which has recently generated higher than expected revenue.

The Scots squad that makes up the British team were generously funded as full time athletes leading up to the Paralympics. It will be interesting to see how this reduction affects the team's performance and what areas; financial support, travel, training courses, international competition, will be cut.

Read the BBC report for full details.

UPDATE: An anonymous blog commentator cites cites a post on the RCC website that British curling will receive £2,288,900 from UK Sport for the period between now and the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in 2014, which "more than doubles the funding British Curling received in the previous four-year cycle."

That does not contradict the BBC report that funding for wheelchair curling has been slashed.

Gerry Peckham, Canada's National Program Director, said news of the cut, if true, was "Tragic news for such a strong wheelchair curling Nation."

As for Canada, he said, "We have maintained our funding level subsequent to 2010 which is fabulous considering there are no more sponsor dollars coming our way [winter sport] via VANOC. The challenge for curling has always been to ensure we get our fair share of the funding pie. Our biggest road block is the fact that as a sport we only account for 3 medals total."

Richmond International Day 1 - scores and photos

Canada's gold medal Paralympic team began the 4th Annual Richmond International Cashspiel with two wins on the first day of round robin play.

Draw 1 - 9.30am December 1

Canada A #  0 0 4 3 1 2 X X - 10

Korea A     2 2 0 0 0 0 X X - 4

4C's        0 0 1 0 1 0 X X - 2

Evergreen # 1 1 0 1 0 0 X X - 3

Richmond RCD 0 1 0 2 1 1 0 X - 5

Korea B #    2 0 2 0 0 0 2 X - 6

Bye Canada B

Draw 2

Canada A    0 1 0 2 1 0 1 - 5

4 C's #     0 0 3 0 0 1 0 - 4

Evergreen #   1 0 0 1 0 0 2 X - 4

Richmond RCD  0 1 2 0 1 2 0 X - 6

Korea  B # 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 x  -  3

Canada B   1 0 0 2 1 2 0 X  -  6

Bye Korea A

Canada A - Sonja, Jim, Darryl and Ina

Norway's Thoralf Hognestad returns as national team coach

Thoralf Hognestad took charge of Team Norway after the Torino Paralympics, and led them to back to back world Championships in 2007 and 2008. Work commitments after the 2009 season prevented him from leading the team at the Vancouver Paralympics. Per Christensen, previously coach of his Danish national team, took over but failed to improve on the previous year's disappointing performance.

This season Thoralf is back with an increased squad and a full schedule of early season competition.

"We have some exciting new players who I hope will be challenging for team places when we choose the team for the Worlds," he told me.

One change that he doesn't expect to make is at skip, where Rune Lorentsen has had a couple of difficult years.

"Rune has his confidence back," says Hognestad. If that's true, it's bad news for the rest of the world.

Norway will be taking two teams to Denmark this coming weekend, and then are scheduled to travel to Inverness in Scotland in October, and Berne, Switzerland, in November. They'll also be competing in regular local bonspiels.