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| Thunder Bay, ON - In a stunning turn of events at the Continental Cup at Fort William Gardens, Europe is now only 10 points away from bragging rights and the $125,000 winning purse in this unique international curling competition.
Sunday afternoon, Sweden’s Anette Norberg whitewashed Canada’s Sherry Middaugh, 60-0 in the 60-point women’s Skins game to give Europe a 191-149 lead. Thus, in the men’s 60 pointer tonight at 6:00 pm ET, live across Canada on TSN, Sweden’s Peja Lindholm needs just 10 points against Canada’s reigning world champion Randy Ferbey in order to win the ‘Cup for Europe. The first team to reach 201 points, of the 400 available, is declared the champion. |
(Nov 30, 2003) -- Thunder Bay, ON - In a stunning turn of events at the Continental Cup at Fort William Gardens, Europe is now only 10 points away from bragging rights and the $125,000 winning purse in this unique international curling competition.
Sunday afternoon, Sweden’s Anette Norberg whitewashed Canada’s Sherry Middaugh, 60-0 in the 60-point women’s Skins game to give Europe a 191-149 lead. Thus, in the men’s 60 pointer tonight at 6:00 pm ET, live across Canada on TSN, Sweden’s Peja Lindholm needs just 10 points against Canada’s reigning world champion Randy Ferbey in order to win the ‘Cup for Europe. The first team to reach 201 points, of the 400 available, is declared the champion.
Norberg began the game with the hammer and under Skins rules, took four points in the first end when she scored a deuce. The hammer then went to Middaugh, who, unbelievably, was never able to capitalize thereafter. Norberg’s team stole ‘skins’ in the next seven ends in ringing up the shutout.
"We can’t believe we’d be able to steal seven ends in a row, that’s incredible really," said Norberg, a five-time worlds medallist. "It was our first time playing ‘Skins.’ We’re quite an offensive team and we thought that might benefit us."
The shooting percentages told the story. Norberg fired a blistering 92%, with a team average of 86%. Middaugh was an inexplicable 36%, while her team averaged only 61%.
In Skins, each end is worth a stated number of points, but in order to claim the points, a team must either score two or more points with hammer or steal. If neither happens, the points value is carried over to the next end.
"I don’t think anything went right," said Middaugh, who had qualified for the Continental Cup by winning the Canada Cup in January in Kamloops. "You’re always disappointed when you don’t succeed, but when you have so many teammates like you do here, it’s much tougher…tenfold."
So now the stage for tonight’s finale….Ferbey’s consecutive two-time world champions against Lindholm’s two-time world champions.
Ferbey has to earn 52 of the 60 points in order to allow North America to retain the Continental Cup. Last year, in Regina, Canada’s Kevin Martin defeated Lindholm in the final Skins game, stealing a ‘skin’ in the last end and giving North America a 207-193 victory.
Martin and North America had entered the 60 point game down 12 points to Team World, but was able to overcome the deficit. Ferbey faces a much more difficult, almost impossible, challenge tonight. In Team play earlier this week, Lindholm defeated Ferbey 5-3.
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