MEDICINE HAT – Team North America holds a 36-18 points lead over Team Europe after day one at the 2007 Continental Cup of Curling.

The unique series, held in this small western Canadian town for the second time in four years, pits multiple European and North American curling teams against each other in an event concept similar to golf's Ryder Cup.

Four disciplines are contested – Team play, Mixed Doubles, Singles and Skins – with each each weighted on a points basis. A total of 400 points is available with the side earning 201 or more points the winner of the $52,000 (CDN) first-place earnings. The runner-up team earns $36,400 (CDN).

Mixed Doubles, which will be contested in March 2008 at the first World Mixced Doubles Championship in Vierumäki, Finland, was the first discipline on display. Scotland's David Murdoch, recently crowned the 2007 Le Gruyère European men's champion, paired with 2006 Euro women's champion skip Liudmila Privivkova of Russia but lost 10-6 to the combination of Canada's Jennifer Jones and Bill Todhunter of the United States.

Murdoch, like many members of Team Europe, are still feeling the effects of the gruelling European Championship held in Füssen, Germany.

"Oh my God," said Murdoch. "It's been crazy. Shocking.

"I'm home for just a day and then off to Canada. We had fifty or sixty people at a victory party in Lockerbie when we returned (from Germany), but then it was time to pack up again and compete. And I think it showed."

The North Americans grabbed two four-enders in the match to negate a European steal of two in the fifth end and another deuce scored in the second.

There are literally no dedicated sweepers in Mixed Doubles curling, with the two teammates holding the option to either leap up from the delivery to sweep their own stone, or for the brush-holder to run down the ice to sweep the delivered stone. One sheet over, Canada's Scott Pfeifer handled all sweeping duties for his partner, USA skip Debbie McCormick, as the North American pair thumped the European team of Scotland's Kelly Wood and Switzerland's Ralph Stöckli 10-4.

Murdoch and Privivkova elected to have the target-holder move to handle sweeping duties, with predictably "mixed" results.

"I swept lots today," Murdoch protested with a smile. "I swept about five stones, which is five more than I usually do."

Murdoch's Russian teammate prefers traditional sweepers to accompany the throwers.

"I like this because it's unique, but I don't like it for the lack of sweeping," she said.

"It was really fun and quite interesting but without the sweeping it is difficult to make shots. When I was sweeping Dave would watch the line, but that was difficult.

"Maybe we had some communication problems," Privivkova added, with her own smile.

In the remaining Mixed Doubles match, Privivkova's teammate Olga Jarkova missed a winning draw to the four-foot to allow North America's Todd Birr and Cathy Overton-Clapham to escape with a 7-6 victory. Jarkova's partner was Switzerland's Andi Schwaller, who teamed with Stöckli to win the 2006 European Championship in Basel.

The rest of day one was taken up with standard Team play. On the women's side, North America's Jones defeated Privivkova 6-5, McCormick's Americans defeated Denmark's Angelina Jensen 8-3, and Europe's Kelly Wood of Scotland upended defending world champion Kelly Scott of Canada 8-6. Wood, the European silver medallist, also won bronze at the 2007 Worlds in Aomori.
 

In men's action, Europe's Andy Kapp (Germany) upset North America's Randy Ferbey (Canada) by a 5-3 count, and Europe's Swiss entry skipped by Andi Schwaller handled Todd Birr of the United States 4-2. North America's only men's win came when defending world champion Glenn Howard of Canada pasted Murdoch's Scottish team 8-2.

Competition continues through the finals on Sunday. CurlTV.com is streaming live matches from the event, and CBC-TV will televise the final matches Saturday and Sunday in Canada.