Camera Courtesy of Voth's Countrywide Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1

Team Norway broke out the fancy pants, but that didn't bring them any luck against Canada, who moved to 3-0 at the Ford World Women's Curling Championships in Swift Current.

 

The Jennifer Jones rink cruised to an 8-3 eight-end victory over colourfully-clad Norway in Draw 5 Sunday night.  They have played much better since struggling through their opening win against Sweden on Saturday, but Jones says they're not doing anything too different.  She adds that they are now more comfortable with the ice, and they have a lot more confidence.

 

The Norwegians unveiled their version of the wild curling pants that their men's team were famous for at the Olympics last month in Vancouver.  Skip Linn Githmark says, donning the trousers makes playing the game more fun, although they did not play as well as they liked, narrowly missing most of their shots through the game.

 

Githmark adds, the pants actually have a local connection.  She says the team received three pairs, and another that was much larger than the others, so they consulted a local seamstress to make them smaller for their lead.  She now boasts that the fancy pants are "special made from a woman in Swift Current".

 

Meanwhile, the defending champs from China continue to struggle.  They are 0-3 after losing to Scotland 14-4.  The Scots scored six in the eighth end, leading to handshakes.  Chinese Skip Bingyu Wang says they're feeling better since their first loss, but they are still losing, and they need to work hard and try to win.

 

Canada is on top with a 3-0 record, with six teams tied for second place at 2-1.

 

Attendance so far has been tremendous, with a total of more than 11,000 fans watching the games over the weekend, and over 2,400 taking in Draw 5.

 

Draw 6 goes Monday morning at 8:30 with Scotland taking on Japan, Denmark facing Russia, China battling Latvia, and Germany squaring off with the USA.

Canada is back on the ice against Latvia on Monday afternoon at 1:30pm, and China later that night at 7:30pm.