Close, but no million in contest

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/01/2009 (6326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

1 A measly 35 inches made a difference of $990,000 to Ron Trottier at MTS Centre Sunday afternoon.

Trottier, 64, who works in a curling club in Osoyoos, B.C., was the lone finalist remaining in a months-long national draw-to-the-button promotion that came to a close during the fourth-end break of the final of the BDO Classic Canadian Open Sunday.

Trottier had one chance to win $1 million if he had covered the pinhole with his rock unaided by sweepers, but it slid agonizingly over the button and came to rest in the 8-foot. Trottier picked up $10,000 for the effort.

2 While Manitoba will not decide our women’s curling champions for another two weeks, four of the provinces did decide their champions this weekend. And another one — P.E.I. — will be decided tonight when former P.E.I. champion Kim Dolan takes on the winner of this afternoon’s semifinal between another pair of former P.E.I. champions in Suzanne Birt (née Gaudet) and Robyn MacPhee.

Here’s a rundown of who we already know will be joining defending champion Jennifer Jones at the Canadian Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Victoria, Feb. 21-March 1:

3 In Newfoundland, perpetual women’s champion Heather Strong will once again represent The Rock. This will be Strong’s ninth appearance at the Canadian Scotties. At last year’s Scotties, she finished the round robin at 7-4 and had to play Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones in a playoff tiebreaker. Jones went on to win that game and run the table en route to a Canadian — and ultimately world — title.

4 In Nova Scotia, former Colleen Jones second Mary-Anne Arsenault came unravelled in the final and as a result Nancy McConnery will represent Nova Scotia at the Scotties this year. Arsenault, a five-time Canadian champion with Jones, had been beaten just once all week heading into the final but couldn’t close the deal. McConnery has curled three times at the nationals, the last time in 2003, also as a skip.

5 In Quebec, Marie-France Larouche — Canadian runner-up in 2004 — won another crack at the Canadian title, defeating another former Quebec champion — Eve Bélisle — 7-2 in the final. Larouche has curled in six Scotties over the years, most recently last year when she was defeated by Manitoba 6-5 in the Page playoff 3 vs. 4 game.

6 In B.C., Allison MacInnes, skip of last year’s B.C. entry, lost only one game all week but lost it at the worst possible time — dropping the final 8-5 to Marla Mallett. Mallett snuck into the playoffs with a 4-3 record but ran the table after that and will now make her first appearance at the national women’s playdowns.

7 They are still squabbling in Saskatchewan about the awarding of the 2010 World Women’s Curling Championship to Swift Current.

The Medicine Hat News reported last week that Medicine Hat — which has staged some very successful national curling events — had the event in the bag and only lost out because their WHL hockey franchise refused to be ejected from their own arena during what is playoff time in the WHL.

That got the Swift Current folks upset and they got CCA CEO Greg Stremlaw on the record as saying Swift Current, whose WHL team didn’t object, was their favoured pick all along.

8 Canada’s so-called national magazine, Maclean’s, finally got around to doing a story on one of the country’s national sports this month. And they found, to their surprise, that "long gone are the days when beer-bellied curlers threw stones with cigarettes dangling from their mouths." What’s more, Maclean’s also found "believe it or not, curlers are starting to look a lot like actual athletes."

This just in — curling’s also in the Olympics now. For the past 10 years. Where you been? Oh right, Toronto.