Bismarck or Bust!

Hello all.

Time for an update. For those of you recently added to this e-mail list, please feel free to catch up by reading the thread below.

Well we’re off to Bismarck tomorrow! We’ve all been hard at work at our respective jobs trying to get ahead or caught up as the case may be.
Of course we’ve all spent plenty of practice time on the ice as well. At this point in the season practice is more about maintenance than anything else. No major fixes or tweaks at this point. However, as part of my ongoing quest to relieve the minor back pain I experience from time to time, I did move to a new pair of curling shoes (yes, we have special shoes!). This seems to have helped a great deal. I am looking forward to not feeling quite as old! J

So now it’s time to “Leave it all on the ice” as they say. As I mentioned earlier, we need to finish in the top 4 of this field to advance to Denver. One game and one stone at a time, right?

I don’t have a specific schedule to tell you who we play and when, but I do know that the first game will be at 10:00 AM Central Time on Wednesday.

As usual there will be live scoring and standings posted on the USCA website at http://www.curlingrocks.net/. Once there, click on the “Championships” link at the top of the page. There should be something regarding scoring from the “Challenge Round” on the right side of the page.

Thanks again and wish us luck!

John

Now the meat grinder.....

First of all thanks to everyone for your awesome support by e-mail, text messages, phone calls and facebook posts! It’s really nice to know that so many people are watching and pulling for us.

We had a very good weekend but did come up one win short of going directly to Denver. We lost the qualifying game to the Chris Plys rink. Chris’s team is the reigning Jr. Men’s World Champion and are very good. They are from Duluth and Chris and John Shuster have played together as well so we were playing against familiar faces. In fact, that team seems to have our number this year as it was our third loss to them. Honestly, we just didn’t play very well that last game. Really too bad. So very close!

As you can imagine this one stings a bit so it will take a few days for us to rebound. But rebound we will! After all, we are advancing to the Challenge Round in Bismarck, ND in a couple of weeks. There are 29 other teams that are not advancing at all.

As I mentioned earlier the Challenge Round will feature 10 teams that, like us, just missed advancing from their sites. The interesting thing is that the list of teams for this event feature 5 of the top 6 teams in the country right now.

The Challenge Round teams:

P. Fenson – Multiple National Champ and Olympic Bronze Medalist
Disher – National Champ and 3 Time Runner-Up
Brown – Multiple National Champ (current)
Larway – Multiple National Champ
Shuster
Corbett
Wight
Hames
Lilla
Persinger

So as you can see this will be a “meat grinder” all very tough games. This will be a 10 team round robin (9 games) so we’ll have to play extremely well to make the top 4 to advance to Denver. More work to do!

Thanks again for the continued support. As we get closer to Bismarck, I’ll send you the information you’ll need to follow the action.

John Benton

Okay, here's the scoop....

The #1 teams from each pool play for the spot to Denver. The loser of that game will go to the Challenge round.

The #2 teams from each pool play for the remaining spot to the Challenge round. The loser of this game is out (*** see the note below)

So as you can see there is a tie in both pools for 1st and 2nd.

Pool A
Brown 4-1
Shuster 4-1

Pool B
Plys 4-1
Lilla 4-1

So tomorrow morning at 9:00 am we will play a tie-breaker game against Brown and Plys and Lilla will do the same.

The winners will be the #1 teams from their pool and the losers will be th #2 teams. So we need to win two games tomorrow to go to Denver. If we go 1 and 1 we go to the Challenge round and 0-2 and we're out....kinda'.


*** Note: So you rember how all year I was saying that eventhough we didn't win a spiel that we earned important WCT points? Here's where they come in. Only 8 teams from the 4 sites qualify by win loss record for the Challenge round. So there are two additional spots available to the top two WCT points teams that have not already advanced to Denver. I know it's a bit complicated but suffice to say that we have a good chance of making it to the Challenge Round if things went horribly bad tomorrow (which it won't).

So for now we're resting at the room and will get some food.

Thanks to everyone for checking in! We really appreciate it. We'll go out and win both of those games tomorrow!

Have a good night and set your alarms for 9:00 AM!!!!

Hope this makes sense!

As promised, here’s the update for “The Road to Denver, then Vancouver!

Our first game in the Trials process is Thursday at 2:00 PM.

You can get the online scoring and watch our win/loss record here:

http://events.curlingzone.com/index.php?task=Event&eventid=2082&view=Scores&showdrawid=1

Remember that we need to finish in the top 3 to advance:

#1 goes directly to the Final trials in Denver
#2 and #3 go to the Challenge Round in Bismarck

Thanks again. Wish us luck.

Semi-Charmed Cash Season ends in Eveleth!

Yes, you guessed it! We qualified in Eveleth and made it as far as the Semi-Finals! So close to that elusive finals appearance and win! The last weekend of the "cash" season for us was highlighted by a high quality win over team Fenson (reigning Olympic team) in the Quarter Finals. By quality win I mean that we played well from top to bottom for the whole game and really controlled it from the start. Much like Madison we controlled all but one of our games and played very well as a team. In the Semi-Finals against our friend, and eventual spiel winner Tyler George, we had a one critical miss that put us behind by three points. The ice was pretty tough to generate offense on so come behind victories were few and far between. Certainly dissapointing for us to never have made a finals appearance on the Tour this year, but we have made a ton of progress and feel like we are starting to peak at the right time. To put it into perspective, every team starts the year hoping that they have what it takes to win a National Championships or Olympic trials, but only a few enter January really believing that it can happen. I would count us in that last group!

So now the Trials process begins. This year there are a total of 49 teams entering the "playdown" process. The process can be a bit complicated to explain, but essentially it's this.

The Qualifying Round (QR) - Jan. 7 to 11
In this round 6 Teams Advance from four different sites to the Final Trials, and 10 more teams advance to the Challenge Round.

The Challenge Round (CR) Jan. 28 to Feb 1
The 10 Teams from above compete at one site for the final four spots at the Final Trials

The Final Trials Feb. 21 to 28
The 10 Teams (6 from the QR and 4 from the CR) compete at one site over 9 days. The last team standing at the end of the event will be the next Olympic Team and National Champion.

As I mentioned in an earlier update, our QR is being hosted in Centerville, WI. John has won two National events in Centerville so we feel like it has good karma for us! Our first game is 2:00 PM on Thursday, January 8th. This will be pool play like the Madison event and we will need to finish in the top 3 to guarantee advancement. When we finish 1st, we'll advance to Denver for the final trials. There should be online scoring via the USCA website. For that and more information on the Trials use this link: http://www.usacurl.org/curlingrocks/ and click on "Championships" at the top.

BTW - If any of you are as optimistic as I am you can book your early tickets for the Final Trials in Denver here: http://www.denversports.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=128&Itemid=55

I'll send another quick update before we start next week.

I speak for the entire team when I say thanks so much for your support this season!

Happy New Year!

John

“Mad Money!”

Just wanted to drop you a note get you all up to date.

Our trip to Madison was quite successful! We went 5 and 1 overall and qualified for the final 8. As you might remember, the format there was pools. We went 4 and 0 in our pool but ended up having to play a “tie breaker” game at 10:40 PM on Saturday to get into that final 8. We finished that tie breaker game at 12:30 and didn’t get to bed until 2:00 AM! The next morning we had to be up at 7:00 AM to be ready for a game at 9:00 AM! Needless to say we were not on top of our game on Sunday morning. It was a close game but we never really got much going. That was the only downside to the weekend. Otherwise we played about as well as we can as a team. We were really firing on all cylinders and controlled the majority of the games. We’re really feeling good about our progress and are very happy to have earned some more cash along the way. It’s a very good sign for us and it feels like the long schedule and hard work are starting to pay off.

To sum up the season so far…..Out of the 7 events so far, we have qualified in 3 with two Quarter-Final appearances and a Semi-Final appearance. Our goal was to qualify in 4 of our 8 scheduled events so we’re just about there. We’re currently ranked 5th in the U.S. on both the Money Earnings list and the Order Of Merit (a complicated points system to track teams). Not too bad for a bunch of kids and an old guy! J

We have one last opportunity to bump up those stats and get that elusive finals appearance this weekend in Eveleth, MN (yes, again, I know..what glamour!). The SuperOne Shootout is a relatively new event on the WCT but features many of the same high caliber U.S. teams that were in St. Paul, Duluth and Madison. The format is bracketed like the others and you should be able to get results here: http://www.worldcurlingtour.com/events.php?eventid=1879&view=Round-Robin

Once we get through this event, it will be time to start preparing for the Olympic Trials process! More to come on that soon!

Until then, keep cheering for us from afar and have a wonderful Holiday Season!

John Benton

“That’s a Wrap!”

Well, I know have to apologize for not getting this out sooner! I really don’t have a good excuse except to say that I’ve been quite busy the last couple of weeks with work and getting ready for the Holidays. Sorry! (Boy some of you aremore excited about this than us!)

So here is my update from our trip to Canada: Thunder Bay was just as I had remembered it. A good time and very good people. I got to catch up with a few friends and play in a great facility. We ended up 2-3 which was a disappointment to us. We actually played very well and consistently but made a few mistakes by being a bit too aggressive with our strategy and not executing those shots. I would simply call them high “risk/reward” situations and in those situations we just need to be more aware of what NOT to do. The great thing is that the team continues to learn and grow with every game. I cannot tell you how valuable it is to play with teammates with that attitude!

So now it’s time to start wrapping up the last part of the “Cash” season and begin to prepare for playdowns. More on that later. For now you should know that we have two “Cash” events left to compete in. The first is this weekend in Madison, WI. This annual event features most of the top teams in the U.S. much like St. Paul and Duluth. However, the format is a bit different. There will be “pools” of teams that each play a round robin. At the end of the round robins (within each pool) at least 2 teams with winning records will advance to the Championship round on Sunday. To do that we’ll need to have no more than 1 or 2 losses within the pool. It’s a good format because each team is guaranteed to play plenty of games, which is important at this point of the year. Scores and updates should be on-line and can be found at http://www.worldcurlingtour.com/events.php?eventid=1880.

After Madison we head to Eveleth, MN (yes, all of the glamorous places) in two weeks then we’re off for the Holidays. We’ll have individual and team practices set up over that period of time and maybe some scrimmages as well. Once we get into January the Olympic Trials Playdown process will start. I will send another update with the details on that process when we get closer, but I do want to let you know that the first round of Qualifying is January 7-11th at four different locations. We had originally hoped to play in Grand Rapids, MN (the home of Gemini Sport Marketing, our primary sponsor) but weren’t able to make that happen. But we will be playing close to home in Centerville, WI, which is just across the border from Winona, MN. So if you’re interested in seeing part of the Olympic Trials process, please feel free to make plans for that weekend to be in Wisconsin! J

Okay, that’s it. I’m heading out to “Mad Town”! Thanks again for all your well wishes.

Vancouver is just a little over a year away!

John Benton
Team Shuster

“Show me the money!”

First of all, let me apologize to those of you who were trying to follow our progress over the weekend. I understand that it was difficult to find our scores and see our progress on the Duluth website. Due to a couple of teams dropping out late, the draw brackets changed significantly and they were unable to get the updates out to the WCT in time for the event. The Duluth webmaster did the best job he could under short notice. We can appreciate your frustration. In the future I’ll try to have a backup plan of keeping you all informed.

So if you hadn’t figured it out yet, we had a pretty good weekend. Once again, we qualified and earned some much needed prize money which will have a nice impact on our budget. We made it to the A qualifying game and lost to the current World Junior Champion, Chris Plys rink. If you remember we played these guys in St. Paul in the A qualifying game and lost. This is not a good trend, but Chris’s team is really playing well right now and they seem to have our number. So our loss to them dropped us to the B bracket semi-finals against the Jeff Currie rink from Thunder Bay, Ontario. Jeff’s team was just a few shots away from making the Brier (Canada’s National Championship) last year. In the curling world the Brier is pretty much the Holy Grail. So we knew we’d have a tough game. For the third time this season we caught a major break at the end of the game and pulled out a win in a game that we probably should not have won! Lady luck seems to be smiling on us. As in the previous times, we knew we had to take advantage of that break. With the win against Currie we advanced to the B Bracket qualifying game against Pete Fenson, the reigning Olympic team. It is worth mentioning that Fenson is John Shuster’s old team so there was a little added incentive for this one. I am happy to report that we played our most complete game of the year as a team. Firing on all cylinders, we controlled the entire match and came away with a win. That set us up in the Championship quarter finals but we’d have to wait to see who we would play on Sunday night. With some time on our hands, we finally got around to getting our team photos done. I have to say that those uniforms are just awesome! J Thanks again to everyone at Gemini!



As it turned out, Jeff Currie went on after losing to us and qualified out of the C Bracket. It’s not often that you play the same team twice in a Spiel, but it can happen. This game was a great match with awesome shots being made on both sides. After regulation play we were tied and played and extra end. Once again we came through with the victory! That win set us up for a semi-final matchup with my old teammates on the Craig Brown team. Craig and team are the current National Champions for the U.S. and had an amazing 32 – 8 record in Spiel appearances last year. This game turned into an offensive battle with lots of stones in play. We had some great opportunities, but just couldn’t capitalize and lost the game 8 – 4. Brown went on to win the event.

My thoughts from the weekend. We made significant progress in a number of areas over the weekend. Team trust and confidence is very high and we are working well as a unit. Now it’s time to clean up a few details and build our identity and style of play as a team. I think we’re right on track. Building on our successes and being quietly determined to improve seem to be the team’s mantras. Hopefully, that equates to even more consistency that we can carry in to the playdowns in January!

So it’s another back to back week for us as we head of to Thunder Bay, Ontario for the Courtesy Freight – NOCT – Superspiel. This event would probably rank a bit higher in strength of field than either St. Paul or Duluth but not quite as high as the events in Portage or Brandon. Another great test for us. We are really looking forward to the trip. I am hoping that they will have online scoring for you, but I cannot guarantee anything. For now you can see the field and draw at this website:
http://www.majorleaguecurling.com/?q=node/79

I’ll update as is necessary.


John Benton

Duluth Update

Well, we're off to a good start again. 2-0 and playing in a qualifying game at 1:00 PM. I found out that the World Curling Tour site is having some issues so you won't see any scores there. Please use the Duluth Curling Club site found here:

http://www.duluthcurlingclub.org/CashSpiel.asp

Thanks
JB

“Oh Canada!”

Whew!!! We made it through 3 back to back weekends alive! Our trip to Portage La Prairie was a successful one. Our record was 2 Wins and 3 Losses. That may not seem that great, but as mentioned previously, we were playing top-notch, world class competition and played very well in all but one of our games. Unfortunately we decided to lay an egg against the reigning Olympic Champion…Brad Gushue. That game was really the only negative from the weekend.

We all came away from the weekend with optimistic views. We’re really working hard on the small stuff now. For those of you not in the know, team dynamics, communication and the use of systems are all critical to success in curling. So we’re really focusing in on those things and are ready to start the second half of the “Cash Season”.

We were also able to spend some time with USCA Athlete Development Director, Ed Lukowich. Ed is a former World Champion and has a wealth of knowledge to share so it was good for the team morale to have him work with us. We all had some things to take away from there to work on.

So we’re off to our next stop on the tour tomorrow. One of my favorite events . . . The Duluth Cash Spiel! Yes, we go to all of the glamorous places! J I really do love Duluth. Anyway, this event has a much more American flavor to it than our last few, but we will see a number of teams from Thunder Bay as well. This is one we should qualify in and have a good chance at winning. Once again, you can follow our progress online at the World Curling Tour website.

http://www.worldcurlingtour.com/events.php?eventid=2125&view=Round-Robin

Thanks to you all for the support.
Please wish us “Good Curling!”

John Benton