Try and name another event other than the Olympics where you have this kind of contingent in attendance! Count ‘em up: 1, 2, 3 — gold, silver, bronze — both genders. That’s right, keep a Sharpie handy as the Sochi 2014 medalling teams of Jennifer Jones & Brad Jacobs (gold), Margaretha Sigfridsson & David Murdoch (silver), and Eve Muirhead & Niklas Edin (bronze) will grace the sheets of ice in Summerside, P.E.I. Simply, the Players’ Championship is unmatched in quality of field. Olympic medallists combined with a dusting of former world champions and a heavy coat of provincial, national, and tour champions. Almost perfection!
Photo: Jacobs and Jones
As good as this field is and as much as I’ve raved about the depth, there is still the odd team missing that we’d normally see at this championship. Well … I won’t be missing them from a competitive standpoint, haha! Although, their replacements are no slouches either!
Grand Slam regulars and newly-crowned world champions, Team “The Pants” Thomas Ulsrud (Norway), won’t be able to make the trip along with Rui Lui (China) after his two solid performances in both the Olympics and worlds. As well, I can’t forget we won’t be seeing the back-end combo of John Morris/Jim Cotter after their team’s impressive runs into both the Canadian Olympic trials and national finals.
Absent on the women’s side are Mirjam Ott (Switzerland), Bingyu Wang (China), and the Russian team of Anna Sidorova (recent world bronze medallists). Ott’s team has said farewell and will not return in its current form. These changes and the fact that we’re finishing the final chapter on a four-year Olympic cycle can make mid-April a tough go for some travel-weary competitors.
Still, not too shabby with 18 of the top teams in the world accepting the invite and six deserving and extremely tough teams filling out the event. It’s going to be an epic week of curling with the lineup assembled. So, let’s have a look at the pools:
Men’s Pool A: Jacobs, Stoughton, McEwen, Edin, Michel, Epping
Men’s Pool B: Howard, Koe, Gushue, Martin, Laycock, Murdoch
How do I see this playing out? My bias aside, it’s still a tricky call. I see us and a few other very determined teams will end the season off in style. Plus, I’m going to make the assumption of Jacobs and Stoughton rebounding from less than stellar outings at the previous Grand Slam (The Syncrude National). Very rarely will you see two teams of this calibre miss the playoffs in one Grand Slam let alone back-to-back Slams — bet against at your own peril.
As for our team, I’m pumped to go head-to-head versus the gold medallists, our Manitoba rivals, good friends and worldly competitors in Team Edin, a Swiss team that gives us fits, and an interesting new look to the old Team Kean with John Epping now at the helm. Wow, typing this makes me that much more excited to do battle! So yeah, I didn’t really make any hard predictions in this pool! (Probably smart to avoid giving fuel to your opponents!)
But, let’s look at Pool B. I’m thinking Howard is as close to a sure thing in making the playoffs. In fact, it’s difficult to go against any of the old guard not making it (Howard and Martin — Pool B, Stoughton — Pool A). One question I ponder is how recovered will Team Koe be after their long trip home from the men’s worlds in Beijing, China? Mix in solid teams of Gushue, Laycock, and Murdoch … I really don’t see the soft spot in the draw, do you? Stealing one of Ben Hebert’s favourite Twitter hashtags … there ain’t no #pigeons here!
The ladies pools shape up like this:
Women’s Pool A: Jones, Sweeting, Sigfridsson, Tirinzoni, Middaugh, Hastings
Women’s Pool B: Muirhead, Homan, Lawton, Jaggi, Nedohin, Webster
Okay, so it’s obvious having a curling wife means my opinions might be slightly influenced! (Or told what opinion to have, right? Just kidding, lol!) But heck, let’s give it a go. I’ll start off with our top two Canadian teams (Jones and Homan) to grab playoff positions. Bold Mikey … bold picks!
Where it gets interesting for me is how the rest of our Canadian teams fair versus a strong international contingent (Sigfridsson, Tirinzoni, Muirhead and Jaggi). Recent results from the last tour event in Grande Prairie, Alberta, had Tirinzoni and Muirhead standing above the rest of the field (Tirinzoni eventual champion). I have a feeling three out of four of the international teams will be playing come the weekend. There you go — I’m predicting a 50/50 playoff picture on the ladies side. Canada versus the World — three on three.
Next blog up will have a deeper look into the rich backdrop of stories in play during the Players’. Yep, it’s a big beautiful knotted mess of them … Until then!
Click to read this blog entry from Mike McEwen at the Grand Slam site.