China curling skip Wang Fengchun’s sacking following his failure at the Vancouver Olympics was compounded by the fact he wore a U.S. team cap on the plane home.

The Chinese men finished eighth out of 10 teams in the opening round robin of last month’s Winter Games, failing to progress after losing seven and winning just two of their games.

Wang was not allowed to join in the celebratory banquet on the Olympic delegation’s return to Beijing, instead he was immediately dispatched to the railway station for the 12-hour train journey home to Harbin.

Full story: Sacked Chinese curler caps bad day with U.S. headgear | Sports | Reuters.

Three days and five games into the Tim Hortons Brier, Brad Jacobs and his teammates are starting to find their comfort zone.

Jacobs, third E.J. Harnden, second Ryan Harnden and lead Caleb Flaxey beat the Saskatchewan rink skipped by Darrell McKee 7-6 Monday afternoon, improving to 3-2 at the Canadian men’s curling championships in Halifax.

“We feel way more comfortable and a lot of the nerves are out of the way now,” said Jacobs, who’s representing Northern Ontario as a skip for the first time. “I know I was way nervous the first couple of days.

“But we actually have a decent number of Northern Ontario fans here. We can hear the moose calls when we hit a shot. With the crowd on our side like that, we’re more confident every game.”

Full story: Jacobs feeling his groove – The Sault Star – Ontario, CA.

Kevin Martin’s team has been touring the country as rock stars after winning their Curling Olympic Gold Medals. This weekend they are in Halifax, Nova Scotia and autograph seekers are waiting in long line-ups just for the chance to have something signed. There is one other event going on in Halifax this week: The Brier – The Canadian Men’s Curling Championship. An event that Martin’s team is not competing in.

Curling has never had as much exposure as it had at the Olympics with up to 6.9 million people in Canada watching a portion of the Gold Medal game from Vancouver during the Olympics. People who have never tried Curling across Canada and the United States are visiting Curling clubs to give the sport a try after becoming interested from watching the hours of coverage available during the Winter Games. The Brier could capitalize on the enthusiasm with thousands of new viewers tuning in looking to get their Curling fix only a short week after Canada’s Gold Medal victory. This new and less Curling savvy audience will likely be tuning in to see Kevin Martin and his team of John Morris, Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert compete against the best Men’s teams from Canada. The sad thing is that they won’t see his team there because of the Canadian Curling Association’s (CCA) choice to not give the defending champion a bye to the Brier like they do for the women at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

Kevin Martin chose not to play in Alberta playdowns after winning the Canadian Olympic Trials in order to focus on winning Gold in Vancouver. In order to play in the Alberta Championship, his team would have had to play up until the day before departing for Vancouver which undoubtedly would have left them fatigued heading into the Olympics. Very few people could have questioned the choice to only focus on the Olympics. Martin’s team is the first Brier champion to win Olympic Trials in the same year. But, the CCA should have known this was inevitably going to happen. The year long marketing possibilities that are being missed by not having the returning champion participating are huge and the fact that you have an Olympic Gold Medalist signing autographs instead of playing is even greater.

Men’s Curling can learn something from Women’s Curling and Scott Paper. Having the defending champion return to the Canadian Championship has worked well for the women and can work just as well for the men. It’s time the CCA made the change, especially this year with the best and most recognizable team in the world not throwing a single stone.

What Vancouver and Cortina d’Ampezzo have in common is Curling. That’s for sure. The picturesque resort town in the Dolomites is considered the Italian ‘cradle’ of curling, and next month it will host the 2010 Capital One World Men’s Curling Championship.
After the Winter Olympics in Canada, the ‘Lords of the Stones’ are ready to invade the Italian town for the absolute main curling event of the season. From Saturday April 3rd until the 11th, the Olympic Ice Stadium in Cortina will be dressed up to warmly welcome the best curlers from twelve nations, namely Italy, USA, China, Japan, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and the Canada.
In Italy, the Canadian squad will definitely be the team to beat, after the Olympic gold medal won at home last week. In the Olympic tournament final against Norway, more than 5.000 people filled the seats of the Vancouver Olympic Centre and cheered on Kevin Martin’s team, after the last stone thrown by the Canadian skip made them all raise their hands and sing loud ‘O Canada’.
In April the North-American team will get to Cortina in pursuit of an historic double title – Olympics and Men’s Worlds – in the same year. In Curling history, no country has ever managed to reach this amazing target. However, Norway and all the other squads will do their best to prevent Canada from doing so.
After having successfully organized the 2009 World Mixed Doubles Championship, Italy and Cortina are ready to host Curling World Men’s for the first time in history. The OC led by Massimo Antonelli is working hard in order to make the world event perfect in all aspects.
The 2010 Capital One World Men’s Curling Championship opening ceremony will take place on Friday April 2nd at the Olympic Ice Stadium at 5.30pm. No details are available for the time being, even if a spectacular and exciting show is expected, where sport, tradition and local folklore will be mixed together in a surely magic event.
As well as being a top sporting event, the 2010 Capital One World Men’s Curling Championship in Italy also represents a great opportunity for everyone to visit Cortina and the majestic Dolomites, recently arisen to world natural heritage by Unesco.

Website: www.wmcc2010.it

Easy rests the Olympic crown on Kevin Martin’s head. Finally.

Eight years after his last shot in Salt Lake City slid far enough for silver and Norway celebrated that last half an inch for all the gold it was worth and more, the tables turned on Sunday and it was Martin at the top of his game and the podium.

Fittingly, the Edmonton skip delivered the last rock this time too, a hit-and-stick in the 10th that ran Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud out of rocks and the ghost of Salt Lake City out of the picture.

Full story -  Martin’s golden redemption – Edmonton Journal.

She is so smooth.

She is so skilled.

And to so many, Cheryl Bernard, the Canadian curling queen, is so, so sexy.

Yes, that kind of talk takes away from her exceptional talent — again on display Friday, although she and her team of curlers fell to Sweden 7-6 in an extra end in the gold-medal match — but much of the talk about Bernard during these Games has been inappropriate

Solomon: It’s not easy to make curling sexy | Olympics | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.

Wall Street trading is often described as a blood sport. But inside the great investment houses, the sport of the moment is, of all things, curling — that oddball of the Olympics that is sort of like shuffleboard on ice.

This slow-poke game, which originated in 16th-century Scotland, has captivated the Type-A world of Wall Street almost by accident. CNBC, whose market chatter is the background music on trading floors, switches to curling from Vancouver shortly after the closing bell.

And so, after a day of braying for money in the markets, traders are winding down with curling. It is, fans say, a bit of after-market therapy. Curling is so slow and drawn out that it becomes mesmerizing.

Full story – On Wall Street, a Romance With the Curling Stone – NYTimes.com.