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!

Changes, New Curling Podcast?

As with everything in life curling is prone to changes of all kinds. Good or bad it is good for the game. For the longest time curling didn't use a free guard zone. A 3 rock free guard zone was developed and adopted by Canada then the 4 rock rule was implemented. It is hard to think I can remember the days of the 3 rock FGZ rule. Anyways, I am just rambling at this point. I see some great innovations coming very soon and I would like to take some time and give you my feelings on one specifically.

Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Trials
(click above for article)

One criticism I had for the CCA was the decision it made the Canadian Mixed Champions select 2 of the 4 members on the team to represent Canada at the World Mixed Doubles Championships. Certainly a good problem to have if you are the winning team but it was a lazy solution by the CCA. But we now have a solution. The creation of a new national championship happening next March in Leduc, Alberta: The Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Trials.

I am very optimistic that this event is going to go very well and will probably get rave reviews from the curlers if I had to guess. The qualifying process is very simple and here is how it breaks down from the CCA:

1. Each of the 14 provincial/territorial curling associations will select one team.

2. The winning team at the upcoming Canadian Mixed, November 15-24 in Mont-Royal, Quebec will receive two entries.

3. The balance (the other 16 teams) will be composed of open invitations but should more than the required number submit entries, then each team’s participating status will be decided by the Order of Merit as of December 31, 2012. The Order of Merit is based exclusively on the CCA’s Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS).

I really like that every corner of Canada will be represented at this new championship but the greatest thing is that there will be a mix of club level curler and the curling elite. Let me explain, all the provincial/territorial associations will be forced to either create a new provincial championship or select a representative by another means to compete in Leduc. In those provincial championships it is very likely that you will see club level curlers come out on top. With open invitations from the Order or Merit to Canada's elite curlers I see many of the top young curlers in Canada going to take advantage for the chance to curl in this new event. It should prove to be interesting to see who will compete in Leduc in March. I can only see positives for this event with the possible chance of Mixed Doubles being included at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

For those outside Manitoba you may not know but Resby Coutts' talk show is moving radio stations from TSN 1290 in Winnipeg to CKLQ 880 in Brandon including a brand new name IN THE HACK with Resby Coutts. This will leave a void in my life as I am no longer a regular contributor to his show. I have known of this this for a couple of weeks and wondered what I am going to do this winter. I certainly enjoyed my time talking curling and I don't want it to end. Dean Gemmell has the one man show mastered with the great work he does on The Curling Show. I would feel like I would be copying him if I did a one man show so I am putting an open invitation to anyone in the curling world who would like to join me on a new curling podcast: The Last Rock Podcast. I would like to have a round table format where 2 or 3 other people join me a couple times per month(during the curling season) to discuss everything curling. You can be from anywhere in the world but the only thing I ask is you have Skype, headset and mic. Anyone interested please contact me by email jordan.bauldic@mymts.net and I will reply with more specific details.


Until next time,

Jordan

Sturling & End of Season

I bring you my end of season entry of my blog to share some thoughts of the year. This has definitely been a season of change for me personally. I moved away from home for the first time and hopefully the last time, only to move back to Winnipeg a few months later. I now live with other family as I try to find my way in life. Things always sort themselves out so I am not worried. Now to the Curling.

As I mentioned it was a season of change for me and curling was included. Mentally it has taken me a long time to get over the disappointment of failing to represent Manitoba at the National Juniors some 7 years ago. Some of you who read this may think 7 years is a long time to get over failure and I am inclined to agree with you. I don't know why it has taken so long but I think the return of the Winnipeg Jets has something to do with the solution. Last May I was in Las Vegas when the announcement of the NHL coming back to Winnipeg was made. Seeing the passion in eyes of Winnipeggers during the summer to the lead-up of the home opener really touched home with me. One thing people will tell you about me is that I am very passionate and patriotic. The return of the Jets helped rekindle my passion for curling but it took some time to realize.

I had a very frustrating curling season in terms of success but will continue to chase my dreams but I must put a better effort away from the ice. But during a game a few weeks ago with my team at the Fort Rouge Curling Club I realized it is not about success or failure. It is about who you do it with and the camaraderie you share in that journey. That team that I curl with will probably never win the Brier because that is not our goal. Our goal is simply to curl together and enjoy each others' company. The success will come but you cannot force it. I have been too wrapped up in the competitive side of the game to take sometime to enjoy it.

I want to thank Ernie, Peter, Garth and the rest of the Manitoba Stick Curling Association hosting a great event a couple of weeks ago with the 2012 Manitoba Open Stick Curling Championship. My aunt Connie Fennell and I entered into the championship a few weeks prior after I saw a poster for the event. Connie blew her knee out a few years back and has been using a stick to curl with for a few seasons. The opportunities for us to curl together have been few and far between. If I were to thank anyone other than my mom that got me into curling it would be my aunt Connie. Thanks Connie!!! Connie will be retiring from curling most likely after this year so this bonspiel was the perfect chance to curl with her in something we both could enjoy together. You may be asking how do only two people curl in a bonspiel? Well, for the most part across the country stick curling is played in a doubles format. The rules are fairly similar to traditional curling with a few exceptions: 6 rocks, 6 ends, 3 rock free rule(I'll explain in a second) and no sweeping in between hoglines. One member per team throws from each end. So teammate 1 throws rocks in ends 1,3,5 and teammate 2 throws ends 2,4,6. My aunt and I finished the event with a record of 7-2 bowing out in the quarter-finals. I got to meet some great people and I found the transition from sliding to using a stick quite natural. I encourage everyone to go out and try Sturling as some of them say it. You can visit http://www.sturling.net/index.html
for more information

As the season winds down I would like to congratulate all the winners at national championships this year. It feels like Alberta won almost everything doesn't it. As well as a bonus congratulations for Glenn Howard and his rink of Wayne Middaugh, Brent Laing and Craig Savill for their victory today over Scotland to win the 2012 World Championships. Good luck all the teams competing at the Players' Championship next week.

Resby Coutts and I will have one final Rock Talk this curling season this Wednesday April 11th at 7pm CST on TSN 1290. We will be joined by Shane Ray of CurlManitoba and Paul Wiecek of the Winnipeg Free Press to wrap up another great curling season. That's all I got for you right now but I promise to myself to update this blog more often next curling season. If you would like to get in touch with me you can reach me on twitter: @ShaneOJak

Until next time, have a good one.

Jordan

Rock Talk November 9, 2011

Sean Grassie joins Resby Couuts & Jordan Bauldic in studio to discuss the upcoming Canadian Mixed Championships, Kerry Burtnyk's induction into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and latest results.

The off-season

Boy, it has been sometime since I posted an update. I do apologize to everyone who did follow the blog. Last thing I remember was my good friend Reid Carruthers winning the world men's curling championship alongside Jeff Stoughton, Jon Mead and Steve Gould. Their hard work ended Manitoba's Brier/World Championship drought of 12 years.

I wanted to thank everyone that supporter me this past year. I started to see the fruits of my labour after I graduated from broadcasting school in April. I landed myself a job in Swan River, MB working at the local radio station. At the same time I was interviewing for the job in Swan River I also had a job interview in Dauphin which they offered to me just before I started in Swan River. I am now living on my own for the first time and I really have to credit my success to my family who have supported me in all my decisions.

I hope to be able to get back to competitive curling next season but I know that if I want to have any shot at getting to the brier someday I will need to make drastic changes in my life. John Morris and Dean Gemmell released a curling fitness book a while back that I am thinking about purchasing to help me start out there. We all know the story of John Morris curling at the Brier I believe just days after being hit by a car so I think his conditioning allowed him to do that. Anyways, I had a lot of success in juniors and I question how great my curling ability really is. I was surrounded by a great team and even better friends(thanks Adam, Andrew & Geoff) who are the ones that really deserve all the credit. Those were an amazing 5 years we had together in juniors.

So enough wallowing in the past and on to the future. Optimists are always telling me do not dwell on the past because if you do life will pass you by. I am quickly coming to learn this. This upcoming season will be the 6th year where I have not curled in a provincial championship even though I have been close a couple of times. What must I do to become a better curler? Well I defiantly need to start working out on some kind of level and eat much healthier. When I have a chance to go throw rocks I should take the opportunity to do so. A little work every day goes a long way. Over the next couple of weeks I will try to think of some things to help my accomplish these very vague goals.

Time to head to bed. I wanted to also thank Resby Coutts for having me alongside this on Rock Talk as his "in-turn" as he would say. He also deserves a congratulations for becoming the next President of CurlManitoba. Until next time everyone.

Jordan

Social Media

What does it hold for curling? I don't really know but it will be fun to see where social media takes the game of curling in the next 5 years. Facebook is a great way to start a group to share photos, create events and a whole slew of other goodies. I am slowly but surely adding more people to follow on twitter everyday and there are some great tweets out there. @fakekevinmartin made the airwaves as he or she was mentioned during one of the brier playoff broadcasts. There is no truer form if flattery than a copy cat. Youtube often gets overlooked as a social media but is just as big as facebook and twitter.




What will be interesting to see is if teams & players will indulge themselves and fans with social media. Mike McEwen and his rink already have a twitter account(@mcewencurling). Go there for team updates that I am sure will be a bit more quite during the off season.



A big round of applause to the Manitoba boys of Jeff Stoughton, Jon Mead, Reid Carruthers & Steve Gould for bring home Manitoba's 27th Brier championship. The final against Glenn Howard was one of the most complete games I have ever seen. To Glenn Howard's credit his team played great and on most days he would have won the final. Howard just ran into a team that would not be defeated on that Sunday. The difference in that game was the steal of 2 for Stoughton in the 6th end which ended up being the difference as Stoughton would run Howard out of rocks in the 10th. This was a great moment for Manitoba and curling. Manitoba is still the capital of the world when it comes to curling, slurpees and mosquitos. Curling needs Manitoba as much as Manitoba needs curling. Through out the years the two have grown a symbiotic relationship where they thrive off each other. Some great tuckers and personalities have come from the Bison province such as Stoughton, Mead, Peters, Don and Doug Duguid. Good Luck to Team Canada in Regina in a couple weekends.

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.

The Final We All Wanted

Charlsewood's Jeff Stoughton is joined by Assiniboine Memorial's Mike McEwen in the championship final of the 2011 Safeway Championship final in Beausejour today. McEwen defeated Terry McNamee of Brandon in the semi-final 6-3 earlier this morning.

This is the final everybody wanted to see. This is a rematch of a year ago when Stoughton beat McEwen 9-8 in an extra end. McEwen was appointed the number 1 seed by his peers after a very successful cash season which included 2 grand slam wins. Stoughton is the defending champion with Steve Gould back at lead, new member Reid Carruthers at second and returning to the team at third Jon Mead.

You can catch this game right now on Shaw TV or logging into www.safewaychampionship.ca

LIVE CHAT RIGHT NOW

Visiti the front page of The Last Rock Rock blog to chat and get some insight into the semi-final and final today with myself. If you want to stream the game live on your computer visit http://www.safewaychampionship.ca/.

Page Playoff and Live Chat

There are six teams left battling it out for the chance to represent Manitoba at this year’s Tim Hortons Brier. We know that either defending champion Jeff Stoughton of Charlsewood or Brandon’s Terry McNamee will be playing in tomorrow’s championship final. Both Stoughton and McNamee won two games in the playoff round to advance to the 1 versus 1 game of the page playoff tonight at 6:30 on Shaw. The loser will drop the semi-final to play against one of four teams. Either Fort Garry’s Vic Peters, Brandon’s Rob Fowler, Assiniboine Memorial’s Mike McEwen or La Salle’s Randy Neufeld. As we speak McEwen is playing Neufeld and Fowler is facing off against Peters.




I often have misconceptions of how games are played out that I don’t see. McNamee defeated McEwen earlier today by a score of 9-4. When I arrived at the Sun Gro Centre in Beausejour Resby Coutts informed me that those two teams were tied 4-4 playing the ninth end. McNamee went on to score a 5 ender and defeat McEwen 9-4. I was not too surprised to hear that the game had been a close affair. Not many teams can blow out McEwen in a few ends.



I will be hosting a chat room on my blog for tomorrow morning’s semi-final and final. Please come online and login while I give some play-by-play and analysis. Both games will be streamed live on the Safeway Championship website.

Corey Chambers and Stu Shiels Interview

Corey expresses his thoughts on his first Safeway Championship and Stu talks about his injury what kept him from curling in the Safeway Championship.

How many teams can really win the Brier?

I am currently watching B qualifying games at the Sun Gro Centre in Beausejour when the thought of how many teams can win the Brier? It is a very interesting question indeed and it makes you think that it could be less than a handful. The Olympics have changed our game forever where teams pay more attentions to of ice training than ever before.




Three teams are automatic that could win the brier: Kevin Martin, Glenn Howard and Kevin Koe. The last person other than those three to have his name engraved on the tankard was Jean-Michel Menard of Quebec. Interestingly enough Menard defeated Glenn Howard of the final that year. Howard's team has now played in the last 4 out of 5 Brier finals which is a phenomenal accomplishment for a team. In the year that he did not make the final he lost to Jeff Stoughton in the semi-final.



Now to consider the teams that are in the discussion that has the ability to win the Brier: Mike McEwen, Jeff Stoughton, Wayne Middaugh, Pat Simmons, and Brad Gushue. Mike McEwen is probably the one team that you could sandwich in between the first and second tiers. I left off Randy Ferbey’s old team because they have taken a break from curling.



Let us take a step outside the box and imagine that all the previous listed all qualified for the Brier from different provinces. We will take all of the teams at their current skill and commitment levels. The Brier then would be played out one hundred times and we would see how many different teams would win. I would guess that at least ninety out of those one hundred Briers would be won the likes of Martin, Howard, Koe & McEwen.



It may seem like a staggering number that I am guessing these four teams would win ninety percent of the Briers but that is just the case. These four teams off ice work are well documented in the media and the results prove that it is paying off. Until curlers are 100% dedicated to their sport and not have to worry about working their will be no parody in Curling. Over the next 3-5 years many of the curling elite will retire from competitive curling and that is when we will be seeing the changing of the guard. John Morris, Brad Gushue & Mike McEwen are becoming the next Kevin Martin, Glenn Howard & Jeff Stoughton of the world. The next generation of young curlers will put even more into training than the teams today. Depending on the number of people that take up intense training will determine how much parody there is in curling.

Gushue/Ferbey

As I browse on CurlingZone today I noticed the thread about the splitting of the Gushue/Ferbey experiment. Ferby made comments about the way Gushue runs his team and Ryan Fry defended Gushue with some not so flattering words about Ferbey. You can read both blog articles on Al Cameron's blog.

Al Cameron had permission to publish Ryan Fry's email response on his blog. Many people have said that Ryan Fry is being very immature and I tend to agree with the majority. Fry could have said what he said in a much more politically correct way. But it makes me think that the relationship between Gushue and Ferbey was doomed from the start from how harsh Fry's comments were. Also there is more beneath the surface of Fry's comments than most of us can see. He gave Al Cameron permission to post his email for a reason.

Randy Ferbey was trying to clearly state that Brad Gushue is a control freak in the nicest way possible. Mark Nichols has curled for Brad Gushue for a very long time and Ryan Fry has curled with Brad for a few years. Jamie Korab has been kicked off the team and brought back on more times than I can shake a stick at. When I watch Brad Gushue I get a sense that he not completely comfortable on the ice. Ever since his Gold Medal in 2006 something Gushue has seemed different. It might be time for Gushue to call up Russ Howard and get some advice. It will take time but Brad Gushue will figure it out and become a better curler than he has ever been.

Scott Madams Interview

Scott Madams after his 11-5 victory over Don Homles from the Willow Park out of Fin Flon.