CurlingZone Quarintined Curling Tour Final

After all the dust has settled The Sheriff Matt Dunstone and Rob Gordon will meet in the final of the first ever CurlingZone Digispiel. The event so far has been a great success. Between Facebook Live and Youtube I believe there was between 150-200 viewers for the second semi-final. That is quite a feat for a bonspiel that was organized very last minute.

The dust has settled and we've got a FINAL SHOWDOWN!

"The Sheriff" Matt Dunstone will take on Robbie Gordon in the CurlingZone Digital Spiel Championship game Monday evening at 8pm ET! #curling #esports #digispiel #final8

Playoff Bracket:https://t.co/zPut9pYZj1 pic.twitter.com/MpGxEt4KmE

— CurlingZone (@CurlingZone) March 23, 2020

Gerry Geurts deserves a lot of credit for providing the media platform to showcase the event. Some of curling's best young talent and veterans took part in the event. I had the pleasure of helping Gerry with some of the administrative part of the bonspiel. I am hoping that I will be able to help out in the future. I think there maybe something here and would like to help it grow. One of the stories that I learned from this weekend is that there was a league made up of many of the final eight. I think it would be fun to create a new league. The league should be not serious, fun & a little competitive. I am going to work on the details and will post some details here later this week. I am also going to post on the CurlingZone forums and see if I can get some interest there.

Make sure to check out the final on Monday March 23 at 8pm EST/5pm PST

On Facebook

On Youtube

See you there,

Jordan

Covid-19 and the Quarantined Curling Tour

The curling community has not been immune to the Covid-19 pandemic. All clubs across the Canada have either shutdown. It makes the most sense as curling clubs gather somewhat large groups of people. If you have a full draw of 6 sheets that is 48 people. Most local governments have suggested or put restrictions of gatherings of 50 people or more. This pandemic comes at a real weird time in the curling calendar. Most clubs are just about to enter their club championships and the world championships would be in full swing. Even though the season has been cut short the safety of everyone is more important than having your name engraved on a trophy. Personally I was right on the bubble of qualifying for my club's club championship. Remember to wash your hands everyone. Here is a news article of Covid-19 affecting the curling community:

https://nationalpost.com/news/head-of-saskatchewan-medical-association-sick-with-covid-19-after-attending-curling-bonspiel


One bright spots to come out of this pandemic is the Quarantined Curling Tour. Gerry of CurlingZone has been streaming exhibition matches of some high profile curlers on Flyordie.com. The likes of Reid Carruthers, Matt Hamilton, Matt Dunstone to name a few. I will be helping Gerry out this weekend updating the draw and line scores. If you would like to catch a few games the live streaming will start later today. Go on over to CurlingZone's facebook & Youtube pages to watch through out the weekend. You can find the draw here.

Schille Ejection

What a great time for curling right now. As I am typing this I am watching both the M & M Junior Men’s final between Alberta and Manitoba (Go Dunstone) but also the 1 vs 1 page playoff game of the Manitoba Men’s Safeway Championship between Jeff Stoughton and Sean Grassie. Over the past few weekends we have been spoiled with lots of curling on TSN and Sportsnet. With Sportsnet’s acquisition of the Grand Slam series and broadcasting rights to some of the country’s provincial championship this is the best time for curling on TV. It isn’t every day that I have the choice of watching two different curling games on two different networks.

Last weekend the curling twitterverse exploded with reports from the Saskatchewan Men’s playdowns that Chris Schille had been kicked out of the “B” final. Here are some of tweets from Chris Schille (@cschille on twitter).

Thanks everyone for all the support! Most of all thanks to my boys for digging deep and 3 dogging a 10 end game! @dkidby21 must be dead!

— Chris Schille (@cschille) February 2, 2013

No point in lying about what happened is it was on TV for all to see. I kicked I rock into the corner after a 'made' double by Brock....

— Chris Schille (@cschille) February 2, 2013

Apparently the lovely lady never competed in her sad life official saw it differently. Instead of talking it over I was given 15 seconds ...

— Chris Schille (@cschille) February 2, 2013

To leave the ice or we forfeit the game, then given 5 more minutes to change and leave the building before being 'physically removed' ....

— Chris Schille (@cschille) February 2, 2013

This is clearly all very acceptable and I should probably also be thrown in jail, maximum security at that. 25 to life sounds fair.

— Chris Schille (@cschille) February 2, 2013

It took some time for the dust to settle and to get all the details of what happened but you can read summary here on Bob Week’s blog.Bob Week’s goes on to say that he has no problem with the official Deanna Rindal ejecting Schille from the game in the second end but was unsatisfied of the reason she gave. I however have a problem with an official ejecting a player from a game for swearing. I don’t believe curling should be held to a higher standard than other sports with swearing. It is a double edged sword if a player decides wear a microphone because they do have to watch what they say. In other sports I can guarantee you that what the players say during the game is not rated G. When a curler swears it is to show frustration which is a genuine way of showing they care. When we lace up the shoes we are going out there to win, nothing else. Curling is a fun sport but for the athletes at the top WINNING is fun. If a curler does swear maybe they can make the choice not to wear the microphone in the first place.

Thanks for taking the time to listen me ramble a bit. In a month from I will headed to Edmonton to watch the Brier with Kevin Palmer & Gerry Geurts. We will be recording some episode for Around the House podcast so make sure to subscribe through iTunes. I also strongly recommend that you follow me on twitter @ShaneOJak so we may interact. Until next time.

Around the House Podcast - Episode 4 w/ Reid Carruthers

Please turn down the volume before you start listening. The podcast was recorded with very loud volume so please be kind to your ear drums and turn down the volume.

Reid Carruthers joins the boys this week's episode. Reid is on the road for the CurlManitoba Road Show. Reid explains the Road Show along with detailing some of his experiences from his junior days. Gerry breaks down the current standings for the Curling Trials in Winnipeg and Pre-Trials in Waterloo. Other topics include the results from the previous Grand Slam in Kelowna and the 2012 European Curling Championships. And the last topic we shortly discuss the upcoming TSN Skins Game.

**The RSS should be up in a week's time so you can enjoy the show from your ipod or other listening devices.

Around the House Podcast - Episode 3 w/ Al Cameron

Al Cameron joins the boys for the third episode of the show. Al Cameron is the new Director of Communication & Media Relations for the CCA starting in January and explains a bit of his new position. Other topics in this week's episode includes relegation, Canada Cup results, European Championships, Continental Cup, Mixed Doubles and the upcoming Grand Slam event.

Around the House Podcast - Episode 2 with Richard Hart

Jordan, Kevin & Gerry are joined my Olympic Silver medalist, Brier and World Champion Richard Hart. Richard joins the panel to sit down and talk some curling including, the 2012 Canada Cup in Moose Jaw, small crowd attendance, the 2014 Continental Cup being held in Las Vegas & gambling on curling.

(I was having some network issues during the recording of the podcast so there a few spots where the audio will skip or sound distorted. My apologies and thanks for the patience as we work through some of the bugs. Also the RSS feed should be set up soon so we can get the episodes onto iTunes.)

Around the House - Episode 1

Along with Kevin Palmer & Gerry Geurts we present to you our brand new Curling Podcast: Around the House. We will be discussing everything curling. Here is what we discussed on this episode: Rogers $1 million dollar bonus, Rogers coverage of the first grand slam event, player mics, 2-teir grand slam event and the upcoming Canada Cup.

We will be looking at having a new episode every 2 weeks or so. Enjoy!