Speedy Creek Welcomes the World

Hi from the hospitable south west corner of Saskatchewan where, arguably, the best from among the curling women of the world are here, hitting and missing on thier way to the final four.  There is one draw left and it is Monday, so by now, everyone has their ice legs on, even the newbies from Latvia, who upset USA yesterday to score their historic first win at the Worlds.

The venue is well decked out and everything is under one roof at the Iplex.  The Swift Current Bronco fans are none to happy about being put out of their home ice as they succumb slowly to domination by the Wheat Kings, with no hope of home ice advantage to help them salvage the series, but who would've thought this would be their year.  It doesn't matter.  The curling fans in Swift Current are very well informed about the game, (compared to the Olympics curling audience).  Today, When Latvia took a 3-ender away from Jennifer Jones who curled over 90% in that game, the fans cheered heartily for a tough shot well made and points hard earned after Jones had spent a time-out and another several minutes pondering how to protect her lone stone on the button.  Canada took the game but Latvia has become the darling of the bonspiel.

There is international media here, in full force, dominating every element of the game.  In the Cda Latvia game, a TSN camera was completely in the scrum of Latvia's time out.  Yesterday, after China was crumbled 14-4 by Scotland, the Japanese media crew had a rep from the the Chinese coaching crew on the ice being inteviewed.  He was genuinely all smiles during the interview, with the ice crew in the background, working between draws.  I wish I could find out what they asked him.  World Curling TV is here too.  They are selling their games across the pond, and maybe to Asia.  The media crew is a dominant force here.

There have been a few quaint miscues, but they add charm to the event, just the way, the failure of the fourth arm to rise added charm to the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.  Word was that the volunteer in charge of national anthems, was really stresssed out that he'd have a technical glitch when playing the anthem for a "team of the day".  And it was indeed, a self-fulfilling prophecy.  And again, it was the Latvian team on the short end of the stick.  They were welcomed, the audience waved the free Latvian flags they received when they came into the arena, and the announcer gave the "all rise", alas, to silence.  We all willed the women to sing, and later when I asked them, they said they thought about breaking out in the Latvian anthem, but no, they were marched off, and went on to win thier historic game.  They were lined up at the beginning of the next draw, and the technician succeeded this time, played the anthem to honour them.  The unfortunate thing was, that I guess there is actually a pause in their anthem, but the WCF provided the committee with a truncated version, so, on the record, the first ever playing of the Latvian anthem at the World Curling Championships will go down as, "incomplete".

Yesterday, The Keith's Patch, which features the same dog and pony show as every STOH  or other world curling event that has been staged over the past 5 years, featured two curlers from Saskatchewan's Marj Mitchell team and two from Sandra Smirler's team, in "Up Close and Personal".  You can ask them whatever you want!  But folks weren't very forthcoming with their questions.  Nobody asked them what they thought about whether the international game should go to eight ends.  If that happens, it will just be announced without discussion.  I'm thinking of asking that question.  Jan Betker was on the couch for the chat session.  On Saturday, she threw the ceremonial first rock for the event, and put it right on the button.

There have been some fantastically curled games and some wild and woolly episodes.  Yesterday, Sweden played a split for four in the 10th to defeat Switzerland.  Feltscher seemed to be over-punching adreneline  in the 10th end of her games, but managed to finish off Russia this afternoon, in an extra end.

I'm not usually one to predict, but for the final four... I'll call Cda Sco Swe and in tiebreakers Chi USA and DEN.  I was predicting that Wood and Muirhead would be bad chemistry at Skip/3rd, but they seem okay.  And I like the Danes' chemistry, but they play the Jones style, but with less talent, so they can really blow games in a dramatic way.

I hope to post again.

The Jobs. The Venue.

Where did I go?  So Sorry.  So Canadian of me!  But I still have some tales to tell if you want to keep following and in a few weeks I'll be heading to the World Women's Curling Championships in Swift Current, so will have a fresh event to report on.

Well, frankly, I became absolutely overwhelmed by the Olympics!  Can you believe that?  I switched to timing day time draws and after two draws, by the time I got back to my wireless node, I had no piss nor vinegar to drive me into blogger land.  But I did get a few pictures and have been continuing to observe, since venturing back here to the quiet zone.

I didn't get very many pictures of the curling atheletes because, in the volunteer handbook it said "DON'T (actually typed in red) photograph atheletes/VIPs or ask them for autographs".  So, I realized I'd have to use my handy pencil camera to get whatever shots I could.  That's why there aren't many close-ups.  I have a few for you though.

I always had to keep my eye on the lime-green jacketed officials.  They wore the radios and gave the hand signals if there was anything to disrupt a game.  Of course, there weren't very many unusual interruptions.  Once I had a technical time out on my sheet so Andrea Schöp could verify if a stone was a biter or a free guard.  Once, in a men's draw of course, a stone bounced off the side barrier and was heading back into the house.  It got blocked with a broom and literally bounced, so the ice crew had to fix a huge hole in the 12-foot.  When the fifth players subbed into the games, that team's clock kept running, so it didn't affect me.  Mostly, for me, it was just redClock yellowClock redClock yellowClock and TickTock TickTock TickTock about 160 times per game.  I had four games where teams had zero time left on the clock when all of the stones had come to rest.  In one game both teams had zero... that was the GRB SWE tiebreaker.

I'm glad I have some photographs because the venue really was strikingly beautiful.

The timing paraphernalia was pretty straight forward.  But when the games were on, we were working beside the statisticians and they had a very interesting set up.  The stats crews worked in pairs and switched from being PC operator to being Caller/observer, every second end.  The software came from CurlIT and the supervising timers all had lots of international and previous Olympic experience.  Every pair also had a back-up PC, but I didn't see anyone use them. And, in addition to the PC's, the statisticians had two monitors with direct feeds from the overhead cameras above each house.  Most of the TV viewers probably realized that there were eight overhead camera's permanently in place, two per sheet.  So the statisticians could get a view of both ends through these feeds.  That would have been great, a few years ago, when the camera's were static shots of the house, but nowadays, with the ease of remote zoom and pan, these cameras were operated in robotic fashion and were following slides and shots throughout the week, as well as giving us close-ups of the house.  And there was one other teeny little problem.

The PC software screen and the TV camera angles were opposite from one another at the home end.  Before the first draw, the TV crew and the Stats crew pondered this.  (I think it had been dealt with at the previous Olympics with static cameras).  Simple.  They turned the home-end monitors monitors upside down so the image of the house matched the screen on the software where the statisticians were depicting the shots.

All week, folks who came up to our work station, high atop the away end of the arena, were doing double takes on these monitors showing the curlers  hanging upside down from the ice and the stones sliding upward along the ceiling that resembled a sheet of ice.  It worked OK, as long as the stats crew only looked at the screen when they had the overhead shot.

We worked hard to make the games feel seemless for the atheletes.  I timed 15 games; men's, women's, and got to see most of the teams.  The supervising officials were never allowed to officiate a game that involved players from their own country, so there were no Canadian officials for the finals.  Let's hope the same scenario unfolds at Speedy Creek.  OOps.... I'm supposed to be impartial.

I have lots more pictures and stories.  Remember, I think you can get a close-up of the pictures I have posted as "small" if you click on the image.  The teams in the top photo are Bernard and Muirhead.  The jumboTron shows the scores from Draw 11.  The monitor shots were taken during practice sessions.  I'd never have DARED to take the shots during a game! (Too busy!)  I'll try to post every few days, and before I know it I'll be heading down the highway to the big city again.  Population 17,000.  Now THAT, I can handle.

Thanks for following.  So Canadian of me!