Friday, December 7, 2001
Middaugh suffers through loss-filled week
By JIM BENDER -- Winnipeg Sun
REGINA -- It was perhaps the strangest week one of the game's top guns ever experienced.
Ontario's Wayne Middaugh, a pre-tournament favourite at the 2001 Canadian Curling Trials, fell flat on his face here this week. In fact, the former world champ was almost out of the running by the third day.
Middaugh, who lost 8-3 to Manitoba's Jeff Stoughton last night and finished 2-7, has been unable to fathom why he suddenly lost his touch in perhaps the most important spiel of his career thus far.
"Middaugh's team has been consistent for so many years now and is certainly one of the best in the world," Manitoba's Kerry Burtnyk said after he clipped Middaugh 7-6 at the Agridome yesterday morning.
"But the other nine teams here are also nine of the best teams in the world and when you assemble 10 of the best teams in the world, sometimes you have a good week and a good week just isn't good enough. Wayne's had a lot of great weeks in his life and this just hasn't been one of them."
Wayne's wife, Sherry, finished just short of the playoffs on the women's side with 5-4 record.
MOVIE METAPHOR:
Nova Scotia skip Colleen Jones said she relaxed one night by watching the movie, Life As a House.
"No, it's not about curling," said the reigning women's world champion. "But it is about building your life on a rock so, I found a metaphor there."
Jones, by the way, was impressed with Quebec's Marie-France Larouche, despite her 2-7 record here.
"They're going to be a power in women's curling," she said. "They're already where I am and I'm old enough to be their mother."
PEACE TALK:
Ontario's John Morris suggested that it's time to end the adversarial relationship between the CCA and World Curling Tour that started with the revolutionary Grand Slam.
"I think they both need to change the guys at the top and bring in some sort of mediator to sort things out," said Morris, who spent the summer being wooed by both sides.
"And the Brier will always be the Brier and the Masters of Curling will never overshadow it so, I don't know what the CCA's worried about.
"They're just hurting each other by not working together."
Morris passed on the Slam to pursue a shot at going to the Brier.
BITERS:
It's official now. CBC-TV technicians have gone on strike so TSN will televise both the women's final tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. and the men's final on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. Both telecasts will be preceded by a one-half hour special on the trials ... Merv Bodnarchuk, now based in California, has reportedly parted ways with Saskatchewan brothers Grant and Gary Scheirich. Earlier this year, Manitoba's Dale Duguid left to hook up with Doran Johnson and will play in the Grand Slam's first event in Wainwright, Alta., next week.
2002 Games Curling Coverage
