CAMROSE, December 19…Team World continues to win the small battles at the Continental Cup, presented by Monsanto.

Friday afternoon, the World took two of three Mixed Doubles contests at the EnCana Arena in the Edgeworth Centre to widen its margin over North America to 66-24, heading into tonight’s three men’s team games.

The unique Mixed Doubles, pairing a male and female curler from each side, involves sweeping and throwing, with each team playing five rocks per end.

In Draw 5 results, the World’s Carmen Schäfer and David Murdoch pummeled North America’s Debbie McCormick and Rich Ruohonen, 13-2, while Yin Liu and Fengchun Wang teamed to beat Stefanie Lawton and Carter Rycroft, 8-7.

North America won the third game, though, as Marliese Kasner and John Morris defeated Bingyu Wang and Rui Liu, 9-5.  Each win in the eight-end game was worth six points.

Friday night’s Draw 6 at 8:00 pm MT/10:00 pm ET features three men’s team games, again worth six points each, while ties reward each side with three points, since there are no extra ends.

The World vs North America matchups are David Murdoch vs Kevin Koe, Thomas Ulsrud vs Kevin Martin and Fengchun Wang vs Craig Brown.

The Continental Cup, the first event in curling’s Season of Champions, involves Team games (72 points), Mixed Doubles (36 points), Singles (32 points) and Skins (Men’s, Women’s and Mixed, worth a total of 260 points).   The first side to score 201 points is declared the winner.  Each member of the winning team will receive $2,000, while each losing team member gets $1,400.

TSN and TSN2 are providing full live national coverage of the competition.

The Continental Cup is a joint venture of the Canadian Curling Association, the United States Curling Association and the World Curling Federation. 

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