It was the e-mails that gave Cheryl Bernard an early hint about how drastically her life was about to change after winning the Tim Hortons Olympic Curling Trials.

One unsolicited e-mail suggested the 43-year-old Calgary skip should change her strategy before the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and that she was calling for guards too close to the rings. Another said her guards weren’t close enough.

Then there was the e-mail from the gentleman wondering whether Bernard is single (she’s not; she lives with her partner Terry Meek). He enclosed photos of himself (yes, clothed) and offered to fly to Calgary to take Bernard out on a date.

Full story – Calgary Herald: Drug test hits home for Calgary skip.

Curl BC will be discussing this weekend the first draft of the following proposal to change BC’s playdown system. They are encouraging input from curlers in the coming weeks as modifications to the proposal are made.

Background

Curling has changed since BC and many of the other provincial and territorial curling associations created their playdowns and provincial championship processes. The two areas most dramatically affected are those that are now universally considered as performance (as opposed to participation) events. Primarily due to the Olympics and the great success of the World Curling Tour, these two championships are increasingly focused on the elite curler and the players and teams that are willing to make the commitment to become world champions and Olympians.

It is therefore essential that Curl BC change its qualification criteria and processes to recognize this new paradigm. We must provide dedicated athletes with a better opportunity to play top competition on a regular basis in British Columbia; we must recognize what it takes for British Columbia teams to be competitive on the world stage; and we must ensure our playdown processes assist in creating and developing teams that can compete at other levels.

With this dramatic change in the performance end of curling, we must also fill the competitive gap for the other curlers in the province who, due to a multitude of circumstances, are unable to commit the time or resources to compete as this level. For those curlers, we will need to further build The Dominion Curling Club Championship, the BC Club Challenge, and regional curling tours that provide opportunities for the “participation” competitors in the province.

Eligibility

For the men and women’s competitions, regional composition or residency requirements will disappear. Teams can be composed of any players of eligible age that reside within the province of British Columbia (residency to be verified by a valid healthcare card, driver’s license and/or passport with a BC address) and are paid up curlers at an affiliated curling club (to be verified by the curling club and submission of the names on the active curlers list).

Teams must also be registered with the Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) – something which has no cost associated to it.

Teams choosing to be eligible will also be required to pay a combined CCA and Curl BC competitor’s fee.

Provincial Championships

For now the provincial championship will retain their existing format – 10 team round robin. However, it remains to be determined if the finals round is a three team playoff or a four team page playoff. The provincial championships will continue to be televised with the intent to increase coverage and to elevate them to become more significant revenue generating properties for Curl BC and host committees without increasing overall direct costs to the teams participating.

However, the ten teams at the provincial championships will no longer be based on regional numbers or a division between the interior and coastal regions of the province. The objective will be to have the 10 best teams in the province competing at the provincial championship.

The teams will qualify as follows:

• the defending provincial champion;
• the top eligible BC team on the Order of Merit;
• the top finishing BC team that has not already qualified (as long as they finish in the top four) in each of five qualifying events held around the province; and
• the next three teams in total current CTRS points (BC events, other Canadian events and world events) as calculated from January 1 to December 30th of the year proceeding the provincial championship (i.e., if the provincial championship is February 15, 2011 then the calculation will be based on points earned between January 1, 2010 and December 30, 2010).

Specific criteria will be defined to establish order of precedence to ensure that 10 teams will be participating in the provincial championship. It is likely that in each year, it will be more than the next three teams in CTRS points qualifying as there is likely to be duplications arising from the other qualifying criteria.

Details will still have to be worked out on potential tie-breaking for the final spots in the provincials but by using elements such as current year’s CTRS points, Order of Merit standings and working down to the number of BC cash qualifier events entered and the number of wins in those events, a clear system of qualifiers can be defined at the detail level.

Standard existing CTRS rules regarding how a team carries points forward will be used.

Direct Qualifying Events

There will be five qualifying events held around the province as follows:

• one hosted in Regions 1 / 2
• one hosted in Regions 5 / 6
• one hosted in Regions 3 / 4 / 7
• one hosted in Regions 8 / 9 / 10; and
• one hosted in Region 11.

These will be structured as full CTRS events requiring a minimum of 16 teams in a men’s event and 12 team’s in a women’s event. The events will be scheduled from September to December. There will be no restrictions on the number of registered BC teams that can enter the event. They will be planned as triple knockouts but if the number of entries exceeds the planned schedule, the events may be reduced to double knockouts. If any event does not satisfy the minimum entry criteria to be registered as a CTRS event, the event will be cancelled and the berth that would have been available through the event will become available to the next top CTRS points qualifier.

Event entry fees will be set at a minimum of $500 per team with the entire entry fee being returned to the competitors through the prize pool for each event. Teams are allowed to enter as many events as they choose even if they have already qualified. Non-eligible provincial championship teams are also able to enter these events (i.e., teams that are not CTRS registered or who have not paid the competitors fee) as in any cash event which will allow for increased CTRS points through the strength of field multiplier.

The cash prize pool for the qualifiers will help to offset the costs for the winning teams at the provincial championships as Curl BC will no longer provide travel or per diem expense money to attend provincial championships. An accommodation subsidy will be available to teams that stay at sponsor hotels during a provincial event. The following table shows the potential winnings that teams will be able to earn as they enter and qualify through these Curl BC cash qualifiers to get to provincial championships.

Existing CTRS events in the provincial will be able to apply to become a Curl BC cash qualifying event. However, this would mean that they could not have any restriction or limitation on the number of BC teams entering the event. Events can be hosted at clubs and in areas as revenue generators and to promote curling in that area.

Kevin Martin and his Alberta foursome built a big 5-1 lead after 5 ends and held on for a 7-3 victory over Glenn Howard in the Canadian Olympic Trials final in Edmonton. His team of John Morris, Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert will represent Canada at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in February. (photo courtesy of the Canadian Curling Association)

• Martin earns 3rd Olympics after beating Howard – cbc.ca
• Kevin Martin is headed to the Olympics – ctvolympics.ca
• Martin dominates Howard to gain Canadian Olympic men’s curling berth – Canadian Press

Crystal Webster of Calgary held on to win 9-7 over Kelly Scott of Kelowna in the women’s “A” Final at the Canadian Olympic Pre-Trials in Prince George. On the men’s side, Winnipeg’s Jeff Stoughton drew the four-foot with last rock in an extra-end defeating Pat Simmons of Moose Jaw 8-7. Both Webster and Stoughton advance to the Canadian Olympic Trials in Edmonton in December.

Let me get this over right away. I was wrong about David Murdoch’s Scottish team.

I still believe the worlds field is a lot weaker than the Brier field – except for David Murdoch. There are two levels of teams at the World Championship level for men’s curling: Scotland and Canada, then everybody else. So, I don’t take that part of my previous post back. But I do take back what I said about Murdoch not being able to qualify for the Brier out of the more difficult provinces in Canada. Clearly, he can.

Who would have thought any team in the world could have beaten Kevin Martin three times in row? There were a lot of people (including me) who thought this team was close to curling invincibility. Teams all over Canada are going to be analyzing those three losses to see the strategy Murdoch employed to take down the giants. One loss to Scotland or anybody could have been considered a fluke, a bad game or lack of focus. Three losses clearly demonstrate an Achiles heel in the Martin machine.

Now the questions that come to my mind are how much are these three losses going to affect Kevin Martin and the rest of his squad? What about the strategy in the tenth end of the final? For a long, long time their minds are going to be occupied with thoughts of not peeling earlier in the end and, of course, throwing the first skip stone away. These are all things that have broken up many good teams.

We are all going to see just how strong of a unit Martin’s team is in the next year and whether they can avoid the team in-fighting that lesser teams suffer. It was clear that Ben Hebert and Marc Kennedy were less than happy with the play of John Morris in the final and we all saw Hebert’s reaction to Martin throwing away his second to last stone in the world final. If this team wants to win a gold medal at the Olympics in Vancouver next year, they will have to get over this loss very quickly. I guarantee you the teams of Glenn Howard, Randy Ferbey, Jeff Stoughton and Brad Gushue already smell blood in the water.

“He’s like the Tiger Woods of curling on the ice.” according to Thomas Ulsrud of Norway.

Canada’s Kevin Martin continued his domination of the world men’s curling championship in Moncton, N.B., on Wednesday, hammering Finland’s Kalle Kiiskinen 12-4 in the morning draw to improve to 8-0.

“Oh, he’s on fire,” Norway skip Thomas Ulsrud said of Martin. “He’s really on fire, and he’s crushing everybody.”

Full story on CBC Sports.

The man behind Kevin Martin’s Canadian curling machine sits perched in the coach’s box. He has his binoculars out, so are his stack of curling papers.

And when things get tense on the ice for his team — not that it happens too often — he’s known to chew on one of his famous, unlit cigars.

Meet Martin’s mentor, curling mastermind Jules Owchar.

Full story on Times & Transcript.