The Scotties

It was a great week of curling in Charlottetown with many great stories. We have a new champion, a phenomenal young team from Ontario & and we had former teammates face off in one of the highest rated Scotties game in history. After all the dust had settled Amber Holland and her of Kim Schneider, Tammy Schneider & Heather Kalenchuk will represent Canada at the upcoming Ford World Curling Championship in Esbjerg, Denmark as well return to be Team Canada at the 2012 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

Rachel Homan stepped into the spotlight and made it all the way to the semifinal before bowing out to Amber Holland. One of the weird introductions in this year's Scotties was the bronze medal game. The loser of the semi-final would play the loser of the 3 vs 4 page playoff game. Homan was the deserving winner of the bronze medal after beating Heather Smith-Dacey of Nova Scotia in the 3 vs 4 playoff game. Smith-Dacey would end up beating Homan in their rematch in the bronze medal game.

I think TSN persuaded the CCA to add the bronze medal game for one more game to make more money. For TSN the bronze medal game makes sense but it makes no sense for the curlers. If you have lost the semi-final do you really want to come back to play for bronze medal?? I didn't think so. I hope the CCA squashes this game in the future because it is a blatant cash grab.

Perhaps the biggest storyline headed into the Scotties would be the first game between Cathy Overton-Clapham and Jennifer Jones since Overton-Clapham was released from Jones' team. Overton-Clapham's Manitoba team faltered early and carried a 2-6 record into the match up on Wednesday night with Jones. It was one of the best games I had seen in a long time and was glad to see Overton-Clapham curled an amazing 92% in the win over Jones and made a spectacular double to win.

Stayed tuned for some posts during the Brier.