I enjoyed doing these last year..and i was surprised about how acurate i was . Instead of opening 1 new topic for every event i'll just use this one for all of them. I will also say im excited for another curling season to be here, i missed it

okay so anyway the first event is the Baden Masters

Pool A : Edin, Hess, Snitil, Uusipaavalneimi, werthemann

I feel that edin is the stand out team in this pool, they should be getting out of this one in first place and possibly undefeated. Snitil had a suprising performance at the worlds last season and if he can carry that momentum through to the start of this season i can definately see him getting out of this group. Markku, although he dosnt play that much anymore is still pretty good though so its poissible for him to sneak out of here too


Pool b: eriksson, hauser, michel, murdoch, tselousov

Young oskar eriksson's team surprised everyone a few years ago in winning the oslo cup. Can they get out of the field? its possible. They can definately beat michel and tselousov, the question is if they could beat one of hauser or murdoch. Murdoch and Hauser are the 2 new line ups in this group and i am not sure how they will work out.



Pool c: lang, neeleman, oehinger, ruch, stjerne

This is the hardest to predict group for me. Fiurst of all i dont know the line up for the lang team, 2 different sites list 2 different line ups and the official site really doesnt help. With either line up i think they can advance. Sterjne is so hard for me because last year on the tour he did absolutely nothing and then got silver at the europeans and then didnt get out of denmark for the worlds..so i really dont know what to expect from him. Johnny frederiksen is at 3rd so..maybe his experience will get some constistency for this team. Ruch is the other team im looking at for advancing, he is getting better each season so maybe this year will be the breakout. However i also wouldnt put it past oehinger or even neeleman to surprise and get out of here



Pool d: Brewster, de Cruz, glbus, pescia, ulsrud

By far the hardest group of them all , i kind of feel for de crus's team who probably could have gotten out of any of the other groups. Its between pescia, brewster and ulsrud though. Short and sweet : if brewster and ulsrud are playing well they are the 2 best teams here and definately in the group and should advance

so..4 of the 8 teams into the quarters predicted, not bad for the start of the season

pascal hess and sven michel's teams both surprised me in a good way, niklas edin suprised me in a bad way, i didnt think he would be eliminated in the group stage

andy kapp's blow out of Thomas ulsrud was also a shocker..and i guess andy is there skipping after all

my prediction for who will win it is still on, and i do think tom will take out david in the semi final. Im going to predict andy will take out sven michel again in his semi aswell and we'll have a kapp v.s brewster final

So coming up this weekend is the Oslo Cup

Sven michel surprised me a couple weeks ago, and has been a surprise(but a pleasant one) so far this season but he's not here

Im not going to do such a detalied preview this week, by that i mean group by group, i will just go with who i think will make the QF and who will win.

Men:

I will say this year that i struggle to try and figure out which 8 teams will make the QF. there are 5 teams that i am fairly certain will get there..but then im not even sure about 2 of those. There's a lack of big names here this year which i guess makes it more open

Quarterfinalists: Brewster, Lang, Edin, Schwaller, Ulsrud.

95% sure about the 5 teams above, here are the other teams i think have a shot:

Uusipaavalneimi
eriksson
gray
ruch
pescia

Winner: Ulsrud

cant do the women yet as i dont know the draw