As always, attractiveness will be judged using the terminology of skip’s sweeping calls, ranging from “Right Off!” on the low end to a variety of hoarsely-shouted variations on “Hard!” and “Hurry!” on the high end.

TEAM CANADA. Skip: Cheryl Bernard, Third: Susan O'Connor, Second: Carolyn Darbyshire, Lead: Cori Bartel

Oh, you KNOW we gotta start things off with a HURRY HARD. / Alright, just clean now. / Right off guys, right offfff. / Ehh… clean it? Yeah, clean.

TEAM CHINA. Skip: Wang Bingyu, Third: Liu Yin, Second: Yue Qingshuang, Lead: Zhou Yan, Alternate: Liu Jinli

Right ooooooff. / Alright, gotta go now, looks light. / Keep going hard guys, HARD! / Whoa! Whooooa! / I, um… maybe? Huh? I’m leaving this one up to the sweepers.

TEAM DENMARK. Lead: Camilla Jensen, Third: Denise Dupont, Fourth: Madeleine Dupont, Skip who throws second for some reason: Angelina Jensen

HARD HARD, but watch out for that bit of debris on the lip of the rock. / Yeaaah, keep going hard guys. / Hard! Really hard! PUSH IT! / FINISH HARD! HURRYYYYY!

TEAM GERMANY. Skip: Andrea Schöpp, Third: Monika Wagner, Second: Melanie Robillard, Lead: Stella Heiß, Alternate: Corinna Scholz

Whoa guys. Whoa. Whoa-whoa-whoa-whooooa. / Whoooooa. NEVER. / YES! HARD NOW! RIGHT ON IT HARD! / KEEP GOING HARD! / HUUUURRRYYYYYYY!

TEAM GREAT BRITAIN. Third: Jackie Lockhart, Skip: Eve Muirhead, Lead: Lorna Vevers, Second being mauled by her teammates: Kelly Wood

Alright, sweep it, yep! / HARD. HARD! HARD HARD HARD HAAAAARRRRRRD!! / Whoa, ease off a bit guys, it’s a bit heavy… / GO. HARD. NOW. I SWEAR TO GOD, HURRY HARD. IF YOU’RE NOT SWEEPING RIGHT NOW YOU’RE FIRED OFF THE TEAM.

TEAM JAPAN. (Top Left) Skip: Moe Meguro, Second: Mari Motohashi, (Bottom Left) Third: Anna Ohmiya, (Right) Lead: Kotomi Ishizaki

(Top left): Alright, go hard. Let’s see some sweeping, hard. / Yep! Keep going guys. HARD. / (Bottom left): Alright, ease off a bit guys, eeeeasy… / (Right): ALRIGHT GIVE IT ALL YOU’VE GOT HARD. HARRRRD!

TEAM RUSSIA. Lead: Ekaterina Galkina, Second: Nkeiruka Ezekh, Skip: Ludmila Privivkova, Third: Anna Sidorova (NOTE: Used to be Olga Jarkova, but she was replaced by Anna at the last second), Alternate: Margarita Fomina

YES. HARD. / HARD. HARD. / HARD HARD FOR GOD’S SAKE WHY AREN’T YOU SWEEPING HARD. HURRRYYYY. / SERIOUSLY, SWEEP. IF YOU STOP SWEEPING I WILL SHOOT YOU. I BROUGHT A GUN. I’M ABOUT TO GO BIATHLON ON THIS SHIT. YES I’M SERIOUS. / DID YOU NOT HEAR WHAT I JUST SAID? NEVER. STOP. SWEEPING.

(Note about Team Russian Supermodel: Originally, their vice was Olga Jarkova, seen at the right. They replaced her with the more supermodel-esque Anna Sidorova, whom I crudely cut-and-pasted over Olga’s face in the image above. Did the Honourable Russian Commissar Of Sports For The Motherland request a last-minute switcheroo before Vancouver to get more media spotlight? MapleRag Exclusive Bombshell Revealed!)

TEAM SWEDEN. Lead: Anna Le Moine, Second: Cathrine Lindahl, Third: Eva Lund, Skip: Anette Norberg

Ehhh… sweep. Absolutely sweep. I was a bit hesitant with the line call, but yeah, definitely hard. / Off. Off. Nope. Noooope. / Uhhhh… yep, alright. Go hard now! / Jesus. Uh, off. Right off. Right, off. (Bonus: Here’s this team appearing in a heavy metal video!)

TEAM SWITZERLAND. Lead: Janine Greiner, Second: Carmen Küng, Third: Carmen Schäfer, Skip: Mirjam Ott

ABSOLUTELY HARD, I DON’T CARE WHAT THE SWEEPERS SAY. HARD. / HARD HARD HARD HARD. / HARDHARDHARDHARDHARD. / Snowboarder Shaun White, what are you doing on the ice?!

TEAM U! S! A! U! S! A! Third: Allison Pottinger, Second: Nicole Joraanstad, Skip: Debbie McCormick, Lead: Natalie Nicholson

Yep, hard guys, hurry hard! / AN EMPHATIC AND UNIVERSAL HAAAARD. / Clean now, just clean. / … Y’know what, sweep it hard, but… I wouldn’t admit to any of my buddies I wanted to sweep it. It just looks like it needs sweeping.

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OVERALL WINNERS: Russia. Was this even fair? They assembled a team of models who may or may not be able to curl.

Honourable mention goes to Denmark. Second honourable mention goes out to Switzerland, since they all look pretty good in the photo above, even though it’s clearly a publicity shot that’s been airbrushed more than a Penthouse centrefold. Third honourable mention goes to the Scottish lasses of Great Britain, because you’re an emotionless robot if you’re not in love with that photo of them.

Happy curling!

While the real tournament is still ongoing as the provinces battle for supremacy on the ice, the real battle has already been decided off the ice: who the hottest curlers in the tournament are. Is it crude, ignorant and prejudiced to rate professional athletes solely based on their physical appearance just because they’re female? Of course. But we’re not a curling blog, so deal with it. (We’re apparently a politics blog, but, y’know, PROROGUED, so we gotta find our news where we can.) For the record, this would be your Male Editor writing, your Female Editor objected to this piece, but when offered the opportunity to rate male curlers based on their hotness at the upcoming Tim Horton’s Brier, she said “all male curlers are disgusting.” Who’s sexist now?!

The relative hotness of curlers will go from left to right, and just so that only real curling fans will be able to follow along, their hotness will be represented by skips’ sweeping calls, ranging from HURRY HARD (Attractive!) to WHOAAA RIGHT OFF (Not so attractive.)

HURRY HARD HARD HAAARD! / Yep, hard! / Cleeeeean. / Yep! Hurray now!

Yep! HARD! / Just clean, just clean. / Haaaard. / HURRY!

Whooooaaaa. / YES SWEEP HAAAARD! / KEEP GOING GUYS, HARD HARD / Alright, hard now, finish it.

Alright, go hard now, but keep an eye on it… / Whoa, right off. / YES. HARD NOW. HARD. / Right off, whoaaaaaa.

Ehhhh, keep it clean, I guess…. / Yep. Sweep now. / Yep! Yep! Real hard guys! / Whoa whoa, just clean now.

Ouaaiii, ‘ard, ‘ard / ‘URRYYYY / Allez-y, ‘ard / Nooon, non…

Right off, right ooooff. / Yep, alright. Go now. / YES! HARD! HAAAAAAARD! / KEEP GOING HURRYYYY!

Whoooaaa, guys. / Easy, alright, go now… / Yes, yes HARD. / Eeeeeasy.

Yep! Hard guys! / Hard! Hard! KEEP GOING! / Hurry guys! / HAAAAAARRRRRRD!!!!!!!!

Alright, hard now. / Whoa, whoa. / Yep, alright, sweep now. / DID IT JUST PICK?!

Eh… hard? I mean, off. Hard. Off. I dunno. Sweepers, what do you think? / Yeeeeah, better sweep it. / Whoa for weight. / Alright, finish it off, hard now.

Yep, hard now. / HARDER. / HAAAAAAAAAARD. / HARD! HARD! HURRYYYYYYY!

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Overall winner: NEWFOUNDLAND.

Special mentions to Alberta, Ontario and Canada.

I’m not proud of the things I have to do for this blog.