NZ Curling

The Vancouver 2010 curling competition starts at 6am on Wednesday 17th February, with the Women's final at noon on Saturday 27th and the Men's final 24 hours later (all NZ times).

There may be no New Zealand teams curling in Vancouver, but there's plenty of coverage to see the roaring game at its best!

• Winter Olympics official site – Vancouver 2010
• Canadian broadcasters – CTV news and video and TSN
• SKYsport has 4 dedicated Winter Olympics channel (Ch 131-134) and will screen over 300 hours of curling – see the current SKY program schedule
• SKYsport NZ news
• PrimeTV has 12 hours a day, free to air
• The World Curling Federation has official Men's and Women's results
• NZOC's Winter Olympics site will follow the progress of the NZ team at Vancouver

And there's plenty of commentary and opinion too:

• Skip Cottage Curling blog – with an emphasis on Scotland / UK
• The Curling News blog is always worth a read
• CurlingZone – news, commentary and links to other blogs

The NZ Curling Association Executive's newsletter has result summaries for the recent Pacific Junior Championships and the Karuizawa International tournaments in Japan, advance notice of the Association's AGM in May and a proposed change to the NZCA Rules.

The New Zealand men will come home from the Karuizawa International Curling Championships in Japan with a 4th placing after an eventful last couple of days.

They played two tiebreakers on Saturday evening to earn their spot in the medal rounds but were beaten in their semi-final and the bronze medal game on Sunday.

L to R: Sharon Morrison (coach), Michael Smith, Sam Miller, Lachlan Browne, Mat Weir, Kris Miller

New Zealand's Junior Men's team have won the bronze medal at the 2010 Pacific Junior Curling Championships in Nayoro, Japan. This is only the second podium finish by the NZ Men in this event, mirroring last year's third placing.

NZ and Japan, second equal after the qualifying rounds, met in the semi-final with the Japanese taking the game comfortably 9-3.

Japan went on to play top qualifier China, who won the gold medal in a low-scoring 3-2 final.