Off to the Con Cup

David Murdoch, Ewan MacDonald and Euan Byers have had just one day at home after their successful Le Gruyere European Championship. Today (Tuesday) they set off to play in the Continental Cup which begins on Thursday in Camrose, Alberta. Murdoch will play for Team World - the opposition for the North American sides will include China's Bingyu Wang, the 2008 Ford World Women's silver medallist, and Fengchun Wang, fourth place finisher at the 2008 World men's, both of whom also won the recent Pacific Championships.

But who is Murdoch's fourth player? As none of the GB Squad, or Graeme Connal, are able to travel to Canada, Sweden's Niklas Edin has been brought in, just like last year (see here).

This year's Continental Cup will be played in the 2,300-seat EnCana Arena at the Edgeworth Centre, bringing together many of the world's finest curlers in the Ryder Cup-like event, which provides each member of the winning team with $2,000, while each losing team member gets $1,400.

Team World is strong. It includes all four finalists at the Le Gruyère European Championships in Örnsköldsvik as well as the Chinese.

The games start with the Women's team games on Thursday. Find the results online here.
The team lists for the 2008 Continental Cup, which is presented by Monsanto, are:

TEAM WORLD - Captain: Pål Trulsen, Coach: Peja Lindholm
Bingyu Wang, Yin Liu, Qingshuang Yue, Yan Zhou
Anette Norberg, Kajsa Bergström (replaces Eva Lund), Cathrine Lindahl, Anna Svärd
Mirjam Ott, Carmen Schäfer, Valeria Spälty, Janine Greiner

Fengchun Wang, Rui Liu, Xiaoming Xu, Jialiang Zang
Thomas Ulsrud, Torger Nergård, Christoffer Svae, Håvard Vad Petersson
David Murdoch, Ewan MacDonald, Niklas Edin, Euan Byers

TEAM NORTH AMERICA - Captain: Russ Howard, Coach: Jim Waite
Jennifer Jones, Cathy Overton-Clapham, Jill Officer, Dawn Askin
Stefanie Lawton, Marliese Kasner, Teejay Surik (replaces Sherri Singler), Lana Vey
Debbie McCormick, Allison Pottinger, Nicole Joraanstad, Tracy Sachtjen (replaces Natalie Nicholson)

Kevin Koe (third stones), Blake MacDonald (fourth stones), Carter Rycroft, Nolan Thiessen
Kevin Martin, John Morris, Marc Kennedy, Ben Hebert
Craig Brown, Rich Ruohonen, John Dunlop, Peter Annis

Niklas Edin pic by Bob from the recent Edinburgh International.