GRAND FORKS – What is the world of curling is going on here?

Curling purists who managed to recover from the remarkable performances of China and Japan at the recent Ford World Women's Championship are no doubt reeling over the sight of another global curling minnow beating the odds at the 2008 World Men's... the Czech Republic.

Just a few hours after beating 2006 world champion David Murdoch of Scotland, Jiri Snitil and his world rookie team from Prague  put the boots to another strong curling nation: the host United States.

Snitil beat Craig Brown of Madison, Wisconsin 7-6 after jumping out to a 6-1 lead. The previous evening, the Czechs roared out to a 5-1 lead over the Scots.

"The first goal is not to go home with zero wins," said the 33-year-old Snitil.

"And it can happen, just like that. The losses can come."

Snitil knows this firsthand. At December's Le Gruyère European Championships, the Czechs stumbled out of the gate with four straight losses, one of them due to a time clock violation. They then rattled off three wins in a row – including the victory over Scotland – to wriggle their way into a playoff, against B-pool champions Ireland, for a berth in the Worlds.

"We just want to concentrate and be calm, which is hard," said Snitil. "It's our first worlds. We are happy to have this kind of start, but our plane is to go game by game, and focus hard on each end."

In the other morning draw, Murdoch recovered with a strong showing against Norway's Thomas Ulsrud, winning 10-6 in a rematch of last December's European final.

"For us, we've just beatedn one of the favourites of the week," said Murdoch, who together with lead Euan Byers are state-funded curling athletes.

"That's a vast improvement over yesterday."

The Czech Republic now shares first place with Germany and the surprising French. The United States falls to 1-1 while traditional curling powers Norway and Switzerland are 0-2.

10 draws of action continue on day two of the nine-day championship.

Numerous television groups are delivering live and tape-delayed action, plus highlight packages, to world curling fans. Eurosport, CBC/Bold/CBCSports.ca (Canada), NBCOlympics.com and WCSN (United States) and CurlTV are all on site in Grand Forks.

Live results, with linescores and shooting percentages, are available via: worldmenscurling2008.com with mirrored scores also posted at: results.worldcurling.org