The answer is that we do not know from afar.  In any case, it would be unfair on my part to take one anecdotal example of an apparent missed sweeping call, use it to make my point, then say "I told you so", claim a moral victory and disappear off up into the hills chanting, "I wus right, mister, I wus right!"

RB - you must have missed my rants on the blog, and my cheers when the rule was changed last year. There now has to be games to decide relegation, when two teams are tied on the same win-loss record, even if one has beaten the other. The iniquity of this came to a head at the World Wheelchair Championship last year, and it was changed after that.

Star Trek fans will remember the post here:
http://curlingtoday.blogspot.com/2008/04/world-curling-federation-stranger-to.html

Beam me up Scottie

Back to the actual championships themselves - a GREAT win for the boys team today against Canada.  Everyone looked to be playing well.

Excellent boys, keep up the good work, we are all behind you doing well.

Another good win for the boys overnight against a strong Norwegian team has secured Scotland's place in next season's World Championships.  Mike Haggerty's report is at http://www.royalcaledoniancurlingclub.org/nlstory.cfm?ID=32605&NLID=40830.

They are not out of the competition for medals yet either.  When you think where they must have been psychologically the night before last - well, yesterday was a great effort by all concerned.  The teams that they played (Norway and Canada) are both strong and Canada alone has already qualified.

Here is the league table as of 11 March AM.

Rank     Team            To Play         Games      W    L   
1            Canada        (USA)              8          7     1          Q
2            Denmark      (NOR SCO)      7           5     2       
2            USA              (CAN CHN)     7           5     2       
4            Sweden        (SCO SUI)       7           4     3       
5            Norway         (DEN)             8           4     4       
6            China           (GER USA)(      7           3     4       
6            Scotland       (SWE DEN)      7           3     4       
6            Switzerland   (RUS SWE)      7           3     4       
9            Russia          (SUI GER)        7           2     5       
10          Germany      (CHN RUS)       7            0     7       

Scotland need to win both their games to get to 5 and 4.  It is helpful to their cause that both the teams they play are currently above them in the table - if they win those games, they bring SWE and DEN back down towards them in the chasing pack.

My brain hurts at this point, but I am not sure that 4 and 5 might even get to a play-off as well - assuming lots of things happening?

In any case - they are still in the mix big style and hats off to them.

In the meantime, the ladies had another win yesterday as well.  They like to keep things tight!  Winning "ugly" is still winning and the tight games will give them much-needed match practice.  The other teams in the mix [Canada, Sweden (especially!) and the like] will remember what happened last season and will not relish the fact that Scotland are still right in the mix for medals.

Good performance all round from everyone.

By the way, if you go into www.wjcc.curlit.com and click on the word "services" on the left hand side, you can email the teams a note of support. 

I have no evidence that they DO receive the emails, but one thing's for sure: if you don't send one, they certainly won't !