Team Canada, consisting of PEI’s Robert Campbell and Rebecca Jean MacDonald from the 2011 Canadian Mixed championship rink, lost their first game last night at the World Mixed Doubles in Saint Paul Minnesota, a 7-2 decision to Switzerland, who are undefeated at 3-0. Canada, Russia, and Slovakia are all 2-1 in the Blue division. Team Canada plays Norway at 4 pm Atlantic today.

Each of the three divisions will play a round robin before quarterfinals on Friday, and the semi-finals and medal games on Saturday.

Mixed doubles curling has teams of two players – one male and one female (no alternate/spare player is allowed).
– Teams have only six stones each (instead of eight) – and one of those stones, from each team, is prepositioned on the centreline before each end of play starts.
– Player one delivers the first and last stones and player two plays the second, third and fourth stones. If they choose to, the two players may swap positions from one end to the next.
– Sweeping can be done by both team members.
– Each team receives 46 minutes of playing time and games are fixed at 8 ends – compared to 73 minutes and 10 ends for “traditional” curling.

Website: www.2011worldcurling.com