Hacked and offline

This update is via my cell phone so please bare with me.

As you may have read , this blog was hacked the other day.

Since that time I have lost my modem and computer to system failures

So we will be offline until Sunday or Monday.

We will report on the finish of World and the Parasport games in Huntsville as soon as we can

Sorry folks

The dawn of a new day!

In life we all get faced with challenges and yesterday were no different for those at the worlds and me here at home. Yet today is a day of celebration again both at worlds and here at home.

Let’s recap 24 hours and how things can change so much!

The fate of all ten teams laid in their own hands yesterday and although each game is more than worth mentioning I would like to focus on Canada. This morning we woke and we know who is in what place for the majority of the teams. Korea, Russia, China and new comers Slovakia all have yet to determine their fate but have made playoffs.

The USA after a strong start ends up in 5^th. Then we need to look at the rest of the pact. We know clearly Norway and Italy finished at the end of the pack; 9^th and 10^th. These 2 teams will need to head to Finland and play in qualifiers.

Canada, Scotland and Sweden have finished in the middle of the pack with Canada finishing 7^th based solely on the head to head match against Sweden. If they had beat Sweden they would have had looked at 6^th but end in 7^th. A good finish for a team which basically had “Murphy’s law” rule; Canada did so many things right but had so much go against them. To start and before the tournament started, Jim Armstrong was call home for personal reasons. This alone would have had most teams run and hide.  No skip and they are done but not Canada. Then Darryl Neighbour third and respective replacement skip should anything happen to Jim falls ill and that would leave 4; Four players to figure out the what and how.

Long time lead Sonja Gaudet step up and hits a home run as skip against Scotland 8 – 2, Incredible under the circumstances. I mean think about it. The biggest stage in the world, never really skipped before and you hammer your long time rival Scotland.

Then a few games, which honestly at any point could have gone Canada’s way, one end here or there and a different story. Then facing relegation and taking on the USA, you win. Speaks for this team, speaks for the back bone each player has. Did they do the best they could have? No, we know that but give credit where credit is due.

So today is a day for them to celebrate and look forward to the future. No relegation, off to Russia they go to claim what they have had in the past.

As for me here at the blog, again I apologize to all for the article yesterday. An article which has had repercussions for me. The site was hacked and someone found the need to attack me and what I am doing. Attack what little I had built in faith and belief. Why? Well that does not matter now, the damage is done and I not you have to live with that. Today I will celebrate. Celebrate the birth of my daughter Arowyn who is 2 and try to rebuilt what if anything is left.  Many things in life are not certain but yesterday I found one that was for sure and I am dealing with that today.

Canada comes home in a few days and a new champion will be crown.  Then Canada as a whole looks to National championships to crown our own champion.

What was the purpose!

Ok, honestly what was the purpose behind the attack? To embarrass me, congratulations you did it. To shatter this blog, you did it!

 If you wanted to express your opinion you could have posted a comment, you could have posted anonymously and I would have posted.

 There was NO need to hack the site and then the article. I know who you are and you have been reported. I have changed everything and it will not occur again! TRUST ME!

 So that said;

 I would like to extend a full personal apology to the WCF, the CCA, Team Canada and any others to which may have been offended. I do this for the passion of this sport and to provide an information service on a voluntary basis. The article posted was full of inaccuracies and was mean spirited ill informed personal opinion of an ASSHOLE!

I again extend my apologies to all and hope this does not leave a permanent impression of my intentions of postings.

To the hacker; I thank you for pointing out the security gap and hope the reverse hack has done you well!

UPDATED: CANADA fighting to stave off relegation

UPDATE: Due to a hacker to whom I have reported police, this article was grossly changed and unfairly reported. MY sincere apolgies to all whom may have been offended. The article has been changed back it's orginal format.

The last session of the round robin will be crucial to five teams, all with a chance to make one of the four playoff spots - China, Korea, Russia, Slovakia and USA.

The remaining teams – Scotland, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Italy will be fighting to avoid relegation however the picture is a little clearer if you use the WCF method of using head to head finishes to figure out ranking. (WC2blog ranking chart)

Standings (Round Robin) after 8 draws

WCblog2 has now ranked in accordance with WCF process. After win/loss we base ranking by head to head competition

Rank	Team	Games Played	Wins	Loses	Points For	Points Against
1	China	8	6	2	44	28
2	Korea	8	6	2	58	31
3	Russia	8	6	2	40	33
4	Slovakia	8	6	2	47	42
5	USA	8	6	2	45	31
6	Scotland	8	3	5	39	41
7	Sweden	8	2	6	37	44
8	Norway	8	2	6	43	54
9	Canada	8	2	6	31	46
10	Italy	8	1	7	28	61

The final round robin session on Thursday morning will see:

Slovakia v Korea -  Norway v China - Russia v Italy -  Sweden v Scotland -  USA v Canada.
With some type of tiebreaker virtually guaranteed they will be played in the afternoon/evening.

Russia was able to gather a win against surprise fore runner Slovakia. Russian Skip Andrey Smirnov said “when we stole five points without the hammer in the fifth and sixth ends we became calm, relaxed and it was ok from there on.”

Norway’s medal hopes are over after losing their game. Several missed shots by Skip Rune Lorentsen cost them the game. “We were down 3 after two,” explained USA Skip Patrick McDonald, “we actually cracked a smile between ends two and three and I said ‘let’s try to turn it around…” Norway’s mistakes helped the American’s to steal their way to a 7-3 win.

That leads me to Canada.  I love this country and over the years have done as much as I can to support it and will try here as well.

Tonight saw Canada take on Sweden with Darryl Neighbour back as skip. Not really a surprise as Darryl was skip and was listed as day to day.

Regardless of if Canada has enough points for the Paralympics or not already (we do).  The task is to  focus on the future.

 I respect every player in the program; they are the some of the best we have. They have done all they can do with what they had. 

Jim Armstrong - Team Canada Skip

Has the level of play change in the world, YES, we know this? Is Jim’ absence making a difference, yes! Canada's performance here, if nothing else show those in Canada that selection is the only way to pick team Canada. We are not ready for the suggested winner of Nationals or a best of 5; imagine what that would have looked like.


We are a leader in the world which had 1 bad tournament.

A few players which held the balance of hope in their hands and could not hit a podium. I have been there myself.  When Canada has it's full arsenal , watch for us to retake the podium and make it golden!

 For a few pictures from behind the glass, go to photos by Young Bok Kim

Canada loses to Sweden – Draw Summary

Tonight saw third place China take on Italy. Italy needed the win but just did not have it losing 8 to 3 against the Chinese juggernaut. This places Italy in last place with little hope of not being relegated to world qualifiers again next year. Remember only the top 8 teams win a spot at next year’s worlds.

 The other games saw Slovakia over Scotland 5-4 and Korea over Norway 6-2

In the big games, we saw the USA and Russia go 3-2 to Russia moving the USA out of top spot and into second.

Canada continued with hopes of a win tonight but lost to 9^th place Sweden 8-1. The lineup was - Sonja (skip) at lead, Jack 2nd, Darryl 3rd and Ina 4th stones; very odd to have Sonja skipping with Darryl back in the lineup. Could Sonja be a replacement for Jim in the future?

Canada needed to win to stave off a possible relegation but this by all a counts is a real possibility now. Canada faces China tonight and would needsto pull off the win. Canada has already missed playoffs and now fights for world survival. 

Video coverage of the Canada vs. Scotland game can be found at: CAN vs SCO

This is the game where Sonja skipped for the first time and Canada beat Scotland 8-2

Standings (Round Robin) after 6 draws

Rank	Team	Games Played	Wins	Loses	Points For	Points Against
1	Slovakia	7	6	1	43	35
2	Korea	7	5	2	47	24
3	USA	7	5	2	38	28
4	China	7	5	2	37	26
5	Russia	7	5	2	33	29
6	Norway	7	2	5	40	47
7	Sweden	7	2	5	30	34
8	Canada	7	2	5	29	39
9	Scotland	7	2	5	29	41
10	Italy	7	1	6	28	51

Final game for Canada is against the USA tomorrow to see the final finishing place. You can follow us on Twitter at @Wheelchairblog

We will have continued coverage of all games.

Slovakia and USA tied for first place – Draw 6 Summary

OK, let’s start by saying this. If you would like to do this blog let me know. Again, I do this for the fact the information needs shared, I am no writer and I make mistakes. Eric Eales is posting comments and results from the games and that is fine. I do my best to provide timely, fact based information and I leave my opinion out the best I can. I post the first game of each day because it does not take me until 3am like the second game does. Eric is able to provide a “timelier” wrap up because he is in BC where time is on his side. End of story, you don’t want to read this blog, don’t read the blog……I work as best I can with Eric at times to provide the information. Enough said.

Standings (Round Robin) after 6 draws

In the WCblog2 standing once WIN/LOSS is counted we rank based on points for then in event of a tie we use points against. We use this to try and give a little better picture of the standings. 

Rank	Team	Games Played	Wins	Loses	Points For	Points Against
1	Slovakia	6	5	1	38	31
2	USA	6	5	1	36	25
3	Korea	6	4	2	41	22
4	Russia	6	4	2	30	27
5	China	6	4	2	22	20
6	Norway	6	2	4	38	41
7	Canada	6	2	4	28	31
8	Scotland	6	2	4	25	36
9	Italy	6	1	5	25	43
10	Sweden	6	1	5	22	33

China broke USA’s unbeaten run on Tuesday, The MacDonald Team had notched up a further win in the morning 6-4 against Scotland, but in the afternoon the Chinese took advantage of missed last shots to win the game 7-3.

 “With my key stone in the last end, I missed,” explained Chinese skip Wang, “I felt as if I’d fallen from the heavens - it was terrible.”

As for Canada; the needed experimentation continues. With Armstrong gone and Neighbour day to day; Gaudet continues to skip and throw lead rock. The problems may have occurred with what we have noticed out of Canada all week, slow play. Canada had 3 stones to play with just over 3 minutes left. Calling a time out; the discussion with Coach Rea was to try and out draw the Norway stone. With just 40 second left the stone over curled leaving just handshakes.

Canada now needs to be VERY careful. With 2 wins and 4 loses the idea of a podium has become a bit of a distant reality. Canada needs to focus more on survival; from here Canada faces a few tough matches which mean life and death to both them and the opponent.  The game against Sweden is a total MUST win for both teams but even more so for Sweden, Canada should have the upper hand. The game against China in draw 8 does not look so good for Canada unless Neighbour can find a way to get back in the fight. China has the upper hand in that one which could see Canada at a 3-5 record by that point; a record which would not be good enough to hit podium. Then we see Canada take on the leaders USA in the final game of the tournament. With the USA stream roller I don’t think Canada can pull off that win which would put them at a finish record of 3-6. The worst record Canada has ever had at a worlds. Were that would place them is all up to the bottom of the pack teams and if they win. Canada could be relegated to attending world championship qualifiers for the first time in history!

Let hope not!