I’ve spent so much time in Canada over the years that it almost feels like a second home.
There’s no better place to compete.
People think nothing of driving for nine hours to come and watch a big curling event.
Arenas are packed and the spectators are so passionate and knowledgeable about the sport.
I’d be lying if I said that football (soccer) gets talked about a lot but their national team has got the chance to change that over the next few weeks.
Thirty-six years is a long time between World Cups and the squad of players they’ve selected represents a proud sporting nation brilliantly – with ethnic diversity, a poster boy who was a refugee and a St Johnstone star from Bridge of Earn!
In a lot of ways Canada is very different to their neighbour, America – and they certainly wouldn’t thank you if you said they were alike!
But when it comes to sport, there are character traits they share.
They love winners and if they don’t do well in a sport that’s a big part of their culture (a bad Olympics in curling, for example) there’s a huge media post-mortem.
GOAL! Steven Vitória equalizes from the corner! 🍁
Atiba welcomes #CANMNT back with an assist 👊#WeCANpic.twitter.com/qHBxVx1EPO
— Canada Soccer (@CanadaSoccerEN) November 17, 2022
Canada won’t win the World Cup.
But just being in the finals will help quicken the development of football over there.
And if they do well enough to make Canadians think there’s a genuine possibility they could progress into a major footballing nation, I suspect I might be hearing a lot more talk about ‘soccer’ on my next trip over there.
I’m making my commentary debut on Eurosport over the next week as part of their team for the European Championships.
It’s a competition I’ve taken part in more times than I care to remember and the golds I won have given me some of the most special memories of my career.
The prep has begun to make sure I’m on top of who’s in form, team line-ups and all the other things that go with doing as good a job as I can.
I’ll take the same approach to working off ice as on ice – be professional and diligent.
I’m intrigued to see how the Swedish men and women cope without key players.
🤩 Eve Muirhead OBE will be in the commentary box for the WCF European Curling Championships 🥌
📅 Taking place from 18-26 November 🇸🇪
📺 Watch live on Eurosport
📲 @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/7hkqXqIrUF— Eurosport (@eurosport) November 16, 2022
Sara McManus is pregnant and won’t be competing while Niklas Edin is recovering from knee surgery.
Oskar Eriksson is arguably the strongest curler in the world just now so don’t fall into the trap of thinking they’ll be significantly weakened.
And Anna Hasselborg’s rink have a strong chance of taking gold as well.
I’d make Switzerland slight favourites for the women, even though it’s a new-look team.
And Scotland’s Team Mouat have a great chance of defending their crown.
Team Morrison have a much tougher job as a relatively inexperienced rink at this level but I know they’ve been working hard at our national curling academy.
Their goal has to be to qualify for the play-offs and take it from there.
Make sure you’re watching Eurosport to hear my thoughts during the games!
Congratulations to Eilish McColgan on winning the Action Woman of the year vote the other night, the Lionesses team of the year and Sue Barker on her lifetime achievement award.
It was a great celebration of what has been achieved by British female athletes over the past 12 months and Eilish’s Commonwealth Gold medal-winning run in the summer had us all on the edge of our seats.
Our sports don’t have much in common but we’ll both be running the London Marathon for the first time in the spring!
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