#PowerRankings W6

#BetweenTheSheets: Swiss Score, Canada Cursed

Switzerland scores big while Canada struggles *again* in Oakville

Another season of the Oakville Fall Classic, another year of disappointing results for the home nation teams. The Canada Curse continues folks. And it wasn't even close this year!

The blog discussed the curse in the preview post last week, discussing how Canadian teams seem to really struggle at this event. Maybe because it is early in the season and most Canadian teams play this event as their first event? Who knows? But hey many of the international teams competing are in the same boat, slipping those sliders on for the first time competitively. Perhaps there really is no figuring out why too

Whatever the reason (or lack thereof), the 2019 Oakville Fall Classic was a slide backwards towards ending the curse.

Last season there was at least Canadian teams competing in the championship final. This season the closest Canada would get to the final was one women's team reaching the SF (Team Rocque). The furthest a men's team would go is the QF (Team Tanner Horgan).

But it gets worse folks.

For the men's draw, there were 14 Canadian teams entered. Half the field. When the RR rocks stopped spinning, only 1 Canadian team would reach the playoff round. 1!! 1 of 14. And for this event 12 teams qualify. The remaining 11 playoff teams were from Switzerland, South Korea, Scotland, USA, Italy and Japan. Heck Switzerland and USA put 3 teams in the playoff bracket each. 3!! Canada put 1. Switzerland went 100% on qualifying. USA qualified 3 of 4. Yikes!

For the women, it was a bit more uplifting...but not by much. 5 Canadian teams reached the playoff round. That is half of the total amount of Canadian teams entered. But less than half of the total amount of playoff spots available. And, because of how the draw shook out, one QF was an all-Canadian affair (Rocque def. Team Duncan). The other Canadian teams were eliminated in the Playoff Round or the QF. To be fair, the Canadian teams who did qualify fell to teams ranked ahead of them so the losses are not considered "bad" losses by any means. But the curse still got the best of the maple leaf.

And the next stop on the #wct stays in Oakville for the Stu Sells event. Can the Canadian teams recover and keep the curse at the Fall Classic? Or will the international contenders continue to punish Canada on home ice?

We will stay away from the overall listing of Team Canada as an #OUTturn this week, that is just an automatic. Lets take a closer look at the actual teams who found success on the ice (#INturn) and those who struggled (#OUTturn) in our weekly Gunner Runback feature:

#GunnerRunback

#INturn

• Team Schwaller continued their hot start to the season, following up their W at the Baden Masters with another championship run at the Oakville Fall Classic. Schwaller suffered a loss early in the RR against Italy's Joel Retornaz but rebounded nicely to go undefeated the rest of the event to claim the title, knocking off Korea's Team C. Kim. Two events. Two titles. 14-1 on the season. And they are the defending champs this upcoming weekend at Stu Sells Oakville. Can they continue the hot streak and pull the Oakville Double?
• New team, no problem for Eve Muirhead. The new look Team Muirhead took the ice for their first event of the season and went 7-1 to claim the title, knocking off current world champion Team Tirinzoni in the final. Muirhead lost their opener to Korea's Team Gim but rattled off 6 straight wins.
• How about Germany's Team Jentsch folks? The question heading into the season is how they would follow-up their breakthrough season last year and thus far, after two events, they have a QF and SF finish. They went undefeated in the RR last weekend before losing the SF against Tirinzoni (not a bad loss at all!). They have moved up to #18 on the Power Rankings as well. When was the last time we saw a German women's team have this much success on tour?
• Our #TeamUpset shout-out's go to Kelsey Rocque and Cameron Bryce. Team Rocque was solid in their first event of the year, going 3-1 in the RR and reaching the SF (before losing to Muirhead). Team Bryce, playing their second event after failing to qualify in Baden, stepped up their game going 4-0 in the RR (including a victory over higher ranked Team McDonald) and scoring a QF victory over Retornaz before losing in the SF to Kim. Another contending men's team from Scotland emerging?
• What about USA <men's> Curling this weekend? Team Ruohonen followed up their QF result last week with a SF result this week. Team Birr and Team Dunnam also qualified for the playoff round, each going 2-2 in the RR and being on the right side of the TB formula.   
• Additional shout-outs to the remaining qualifying teams this weekend: Team Duncan, Team Balsdon, Team Stern, Team Cannon, Team Hess, Team T. Horgan, Team Yamaguchi, (QF) and Team Gim, Team E. Kim, Team Froud, Team Sidorova, Team Matsumura and Team Lottenbach (PO).
• Special shout-out to Italy! We don't often get to talk about Italian Curling but this was a very successful opening weekend. Retornaz goes undefeated in the RR and reaches the QF. And, in perhaps the bigger upset, Veronica Zappone goes 2-2 in the RR (including a win over Jamie Sinclair) to just miss the playoffs due to the TB.
• Mixed Doubles Time!! The blog made a bad error last week in the weekend preview by not discussing the mixed doubles event in Battleford, SK. Shame on you #TwineTime!! But lets correct the error with discussing the results right now. Huge congrats go out to Sweden's Sofia Mabergs (Team Hasselborg) and Saskatchewan's own Brady Scharback (Team Meachem). The on and off-the-ice couple qualified for the playoffs via the A-side and wound up with a perfect 6-0 record to claim the title. They defeated the Weyburn, Saskatchewan duo of Emily Haupstein (Team Ackerman) and Nathan Pomedli in the final. This was a 24-team triple knockout with 8 qualifiers. The victory by Mabergs/Scharback truly proves the couple who curls together, stays together!

#OUTturn

• While some Japanese teams found success, some completely stumbled. What happened to Team Morozumi? We just saw them win a tournament a few weeks ago. This weekend they go 0-4. I get they may still be feeling out the process of competing together but going winless after a spiel victory is a bit surprising and a step back. Similar for Team Koana. Last weekend they reached the final in Morris. This weekend they go 0-4 as well. What happened? You know the blog saying for success: Consistency, Consistency, Consistency. Neither of these teams have that right now.
• There were two teams in this field who competed at the Brier last season, both reaching the Championship Pool. Team McDonald and Team Muyres should have been the favourites to end the #CanadaCurse for the men in Oakville. Both struggled in their season debut. Both went 2-2 and both missed the playoffs due to the TB procedure. Both were placed in winnable pools based on rankings so the struggles from both teams is a bit of a surprise.
• Some US teams found surprising success while others, including a few of the "bigger" names, certainly struggled. Jamie Sinclair, tabbed by this blog as being a team to watch out for this season, couldn't get their sliders in place at their opening event going 1-3. Similar for #TeamYoungBucks, now skipped by Korey Dropkin. They also went 1-3 in a minor surprise. Both of these teams entered the event with high playoff potential.

How did the #OakvilleFallClassic results impact our rankings mountain this week? And how does winning back-to-back titles still not get you in the Top 10? Lets take a look at this week's updated Power Rankings:

#PowerRankings

WOMEN

1. Team Homan - 7820 (LW: 1)
2. Team Einarson - 7190 (2)
3. Team Hasselborg - 6870 (3)
4. Team Tirinzoni - 6395 (4)
5. Team Kovaleva - 4165 (5)

Hon. Mention: Team J. Jones, Team Carey, Team Fujisawa, Team Scheidegger, Team Yoshimura

Not a lot of movement among our Top 10 folks. Team Tirinzoni made up some ground on Team Hasselborg though for Top 3 with their finals appearance in Oakville. And Team Scheidegger, inactive still this season, actually leapfrogged back over Team Yoshimura for the #9 spot.

Yoshimura was unable to #DefendTheIce in Oakville last weekend, failing to defend their 250 points earned last year. In fact Yoshimura was only able to collect 1 win in Oakville, earning only 5 points for this season. Overall the team took a 245 hit against their ranking point total, thus the drop to #10.

Next week should be interesting with #StuSellsOakville as Tirinzoni has 300 points to defend for reaching the final last year. Yoshimura has 90 to defend from making the QF. And, the big kicker for the weekly rankings, the HDF Shoot-Out was bumped back a week this year. What this means is teams who earned points at the Shoot-Out last season actually will lose all those points on next week's Power Rankings. Of course teams will earn points for competing in the event the following weekend but considering the Shoot-Out is also a #Tour500 event, we will see some teams lose points without even competing.

Welcome to the 52-week rankings formula folks.

MEN

1. Team Bottcher - 7628 (LW: 1)
2. Team Koe - 6630 (2)
3. Team Mouat - 5437 (3)
4. Team Edin - 5372 (4)
5. Team Epping - 5013.5 (5)

Hon. Mention: Team Paterson, Team De Cruz, Team Gushue, Team Howard, Team Jacobs

Again no major changes among the Top 10 this week as we have yet to see these teams really hit the ice and start their season. The one minor change you may notice compared to last week's rankings is the new point total for Team Epping and the drop for Team Jacobs.

Epping's point total had to be re-adjusted to remove the points earned by Craig Saville last season and add the points Ryan Fry brings over from Jacobs. Collectively the move actually cost the team 219.5 ranking points.

Similar for Jacobs. They needed to remove the points collected from Fry, subtracting 1088.75 total points earned per player last season. As Jacobs picked up Marc Kennedy, who did not play last season thus bringing over no additional points, the team takes the overall loss to drop them from #8 to #10.

This certainly says something about our Top 10 though when a team can lose over 1,000 points and still remain in the Top 10.

You may be wondering where Team Schwaller ranks right now considering they have opened the season with back-to-back wins. Schwaller opened the season with 1892 points and have since collected #Tour500 and #Tour250 wins, adding 750. Now remember last year they did collect 90 from Baden and 45 from Oakville so their actual gain this season is not 750 but 615, raising their 2019/20 season ranking total to 2507. Schwaller currently sits #16 on the rankings mountain, closing in on the cusp for future #gsoc invite. But remember they also enter Stu Sells Oakville this weekend as the defending champion. And Stu Sells Oakville is a #Tour500 event so they have 500 points they need to defend.

#StayTuned

Speaking of #StuSellsOakville, the blog will slide out of the hack with a full preview of the men's and women's draw later in the week. This is a big event and we will see some of the top teams in the world compete for the first time this upcoming weekend.

Until then, enjoy the short week rock heads.