Photo: Robert Campbell, Rebecca Jean MacDonald

PEI’s Robert Campbell and Rebecca Jean MacDonald, Canada’s team at the World Mixed Doubles in Saint Paul Minnesota, lost their only game today, a 6-4 decision to Norway, who, trailing 3-1 after three ends, picked up four points in the fourth end and stole a single in the fifth to pull ahead. PEI picked up singles in the next two ends, but couldn’t pull out the victory, and now slip to 2-2 in their pool, behind unbeaten Switzerland (4-0), and Russia at 3-1, and tied with Denmark and Slovakia.

MacDonald says she is enjoying the mixed doubles format. “Each end is just a new game and that how you have to play it. This is our first time ever playing mixed doubles [in Canada the mixed doubles team is drawn from the four player Canadian Mixed champion team]. This is the real thing. I am really enjoying it and I think it’s got potential to go somewhere. You just need to get in to the method and the format but it’s a lot of fun out there.”

Campbell is also a fan of mixed doubles. “I love the format – it’s different for us being from Canada – we are used to playing four on four mixed. We had to put a lot of practise into it and hopefully things will pay off this week. It’s a fun, fun game and hopefully we’ll just play better and better as the week goes on. It’s a game where you need patience and you need to really interact with your teammate – you have to know each other really well.”

Team Canada takes on Slovakia at noon PEI time in their only Wednesday contest. Round robin play play wraps up on Thursday, with Canada playing Italy (1-3) and Russia (3-1). The finals go Saturday afternoon.

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