Wheelchair Curling

On St Patrick's day I went to a wheelchair curling match in Vancouver.

After the pre-game practice a few bag pipers played

and the teams rolled out with mounties holding signs for each country.

Wheelchair curling is much different than normal curling since they use a stick to slide the rock along the ice and stay in one spot while they do it. To keep them in one spot one or two of their teammates sits behind them and holds their wheels. There is also no sweeping involved so they have to be more skilled at using just the right strength.

The Great Britain team differed from all the others in that most of their players like to release the rocks from way back behind the circle. It seems like that would make it harder, but perhaps that's part of the rules in Britain.

Four games happen at the same time so I got to watch them all. On sheet D, farthest from me was Switzerland vs. Korea.

On sheet C was the USA vs Norway.

The Norwegian curlers wore the same crazy pants that
their country did during the Olympics curling.

One of the American players wore sunglasses, I assume just to look cool.

On sheet B was Sweden vs Great Britain.

On sheet A, closest to me was Germany

versus Canada.

At first none of the games were very close. After Germany got 1 point, Canada got 2 and than 4 putting them way out in front.

The 6th end was the most interesting one of the game with both teams somehow sending rocks all the way through the center of this without hitting anything.

Germany did make this nice shot though to knock out two of Canada's stones. In the last two ends they scored 4 points.

Ultimately though Germany didn't come back fast enough to catch Canada who won 8-6.

The first game to finish was at the other side where Korea dominated Switzerland. Not only did Switzerland concede after the 7th end, but the end was finished before some of the other teams had even started the 7th end.

The other 3 games were all a lot closer with the teams that were down working hard to catch up. On sheet C they had to measure how close the rocks were to the center at the end of the 8th (and final) end. If Norway had the closest rock than they would tie it up but they didn't so the US won 9-8.

The Great Britain vs Sweden game also needed a rock measured in the 8th end. Sweden successfully got 5 points in the last two ends to tie the game and force a 9th end.

The 9th end was intense with a lot of stones sitting in the house (rings). Sweden successfully curled this shot in behind some guards to place it closest to the center.

Great Britain hit a rock into the center in an attempt to get one closer.

Great Britain also had the hammer (last rock) and made one final and close attempt to grab the point but didn't make it. Sweden pulled off the win which helped them get a good enough record to face Italy in a tie-breaker today. They won that and tomorrow they face Canada in the semi-finals at 10am. When the teams met during the round robin Sweden won 8-4 but Canada had a record of 7-2 in the round robin while Sweden's record was 5-4 plus the tie breaker win.