Where would you rather curl?

Back in the 'good old days', it really was very simple: if it froze outside, you curled. If it didn’t, you didn’t. Oh, I know that the romantics out there yearn for the time when curling was only ever played when the plough was frozen in the furrow, but really? Years passed with stones lying unused and forgotten. Check your club’s old records and spot the gaps.

The 'indoor curling on artificial ice revolution' really started when some wise men in the west constructed the first Scottish Ice Rink at Crossmyloof, a suburb on Glasgow’s south side. It was opened in October 1907. Curlers were quick to take advantage – indeed the first visiting Canadian team came over and played for the Strathcona Cup in January and February 1909. Most of the test matches were played at the new indoor rink. In 1912, Edinburgh followed suit and Haymarket ice rink opened for business. Not long afterwards, a rink was opened in Aberdeen. When the original Crossmyloof rink was severely damaged by fire in 1917, Haymarket became, and remained, the only indoor venue in the Central Belt until 1928 when a new rink opened its doors on the old Crossmyloof site.

And that was kind of it until Great Britain upset the Canadian reigning champions and favourites by winning the ice hockey Gold Medal at the 1936 Winter Olympic Games in Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany. Funny how completely unrelated events conspire to help another sport! Ice hockey took off in Britain and for a heady three years before the Second World War put paid to things, ice rinks, most with spectator facilities, sprang up all over the place. In 1936, Perth opened its doors for the first time and in 1938 new rinks opened in Ayr, Edinburgh (Murrayfield) and Kirkcaldy.

Throughout the forties and fifties, the sport of curling in Scotland was played (indoors) at Ayr, Crossmyloof, Falkirk, Edinburgh (Haymarket), Kirkcaldy, Perth, Dundee and Aberdeen. There were occasional games at other rinks like Paisley, but in the main, those eight rinks catered for the sport. They were all mixed use and the curlers had to share their ice (though not at the same time!) with skaters and ice hockey players. The rinks were run as businesses and ownership tended to be by shareholders and latterly, by individuals. There were no council-run facilities as far as I can ascertain and there was probably enough business to go around. Games took place over three hour sessions and it was not uncommon for there to be fifteen ends played on what we would now consider slow ice.

Starting with Kelso in 1962, there followed a rash of ice rink building in Scotland and it was during the next ten or so years that new rinks were built at Lockerbie, Stranraer, Ayr (replacing the original), Hamilton, Aviemore and Inverness. The sixties was a time of real and – important this – sustainable growth in the sport’s facilities and it is no surprise to report that all of those rinks, with the exception of Aviemore, are still in existence and that they all have contributed to the well-being of the game. Typically, a group of keen curlers, often lead by a 'worthy' – one thinks of Willie Wilson in Kelso, Bob Grierson in Stranraer or Tom Dickson at Hamilton, would get together, often after returning from a tour to Canada, and lobby the local community for a rink, which would duly be built.

Hammy McMillan started a new trend in 1970. He already owned the North West Castle hotel and had been approached by Bob Grierson about the possibility of building a rink attached to the hotel. Hammy went ahead and built it! It proved a winning formula with the weekend curling competitions attracting curlers from all over Scotland to compete. Others copied Hammy and new 'attached' rinks sprang up in places like Lochgoilhead, Letham Grange, Forest Hills and Brora. Sadly, they have all gone and we are left with the Green Hotel rink in Kinross and Greenacres in Renfrewshire. Interestingly, John Stevenson started Greenacres off as an addition to his hotel, but it has since developed as a rink in its own right – the only example of an ice rink outliving the original hotel!

The two original indoor rinks at Haymarket and Crossmyloof have since been replaced. In Edinburgh, curling now takes place at a dedicated rink attached to the original 1930s Murrayfield ice rink and in Glasgow, Braehead took over from the Summit Centre in the 1990s.

Four other privately-run rinks deserve a mention. Gogar Park was owned and run by the Gumley family. Sadly, it shut down and is now a garden shed for RBS. The Stirling rink replaced the old Falkirk rink and was financed by a share issue - £200 per share. I know this because I bought one. Interestingly, ownership bought you a free sheet of ice in lieu of interest. The rink finally closed down a couple of years ago when the new council-funded Peak Centre replaced it. The Curl Aberdeen facility replaced a rink at Dyce which in turn had replaced the old Donald’s rink. It was financed by a combination of private donation and lottery-funded grant money. The Inverness Ice Centre has been bought by the users (curlers and skaters) and is run by a board chaired by my old mucker, Tom Pendreigh.

Council-run facilities began to be used by curlers around about the nineteen-eighties and the sport has found new homes in centres like Harvies in Stevenson (the Magnum in Irvine having closed), the Galleon in Kilmarnock and the Dumfries Ice Bowl. There are, of course, others as well.

Now here is a big problem for our sport. On the one hand we should welcome any additional facilities that enable our sport to grow in a particular area, but on the other, we need to be careful where a situation pertains like that in the south of Scotland. There is an existing facility (Lockerbie) that is owned by shareholders. The rink has to 'clean its face' financially and has to set aside monies for the rainy day that the stones need replacing, for example. Perhaps, as at Murrayfield, the curlers are in the throes of 'buying the rin'”, so there is an additional cost that needs to be funded. The banks do not go away in all of this and if there are loans, then they need both to be serviced and, ultimately, paid off.

And along comes a cuckoo! The council build a brand spanking new rink at Dumfries Ice Bowl with all of the mod cons that you would expect of a new-build facility, and curling availability seven days a week. Hopefully, it will attract new curlers to the sport, but there cannot help but be leakage of existing business from the old to the new rink. All’s fair in love and war; competition is what makes the world go around, but ... There is not the same financial imperative on a council-run facility as there is on a business. It is not a competition of equals. Greenacres is a privately-owned ice rink that has to show a return. The Waterfront is a council-run facility that does not need to show the same return.

It would be a terrible shame if one of our existing rinks went bust because a council-run facility opened up next door. Where would you rather curl – a curling club over which you have some control, or a sports centre over which you have hee-haw control? Interesting question for us all to ponder this crisp winter’s morn.

The Swan

In 2012, the Edinburgh Curling Club celebrates its centenary. Plans are well advanced for the centenary dinner at the city’s Corn Exchange on Saturday, February 25, and before that a series of ten centenary bonspiels at the Murrayfield Curling Rink on January 28 and 29. The bonspiels are all but fully-subscribed as I write and we have sold over three hundred tickets for the dinner. All of these celebrations were made possible by a linked, but totally separate series of events in 1910.

By that time, the west end of Edinburgh was built up as we know it today. If you were to travel back in time, your twenty-first century olfactory sensibilities would be assaulted by the different smells of the time and you might notice a smoky pall in the air; almost everyone would be smoking something or other and the noises you would hear would not be the sounds of idling internal combustion engines waiting interminably at the traffic lights, but instead be the clip-clopping of horses’ hooves on cobblestones mixed with the screech of metal wheels on tram lines. But the buildings that you see today were already built and the Haymarket station was a longstanding feature of the landscape, having opened in 1842 as the original terminus for the Edinburgh and Glasgow railway.

Just beside the station, John Swan and company had their Edinburgh operation, but it was landlocked and too small for purpose, so they moved their auctioneering business out to Gorgie, near the newly-developed Corn Exchange building. The new Haymarket ice rink was built on the freed-up parcel of land and opened for business in February 1912. The directors of John Swan and company presented a magnificent trophy to the Edinburgh Curling Club for double rink competition. To this day the trophy is presented to the winners of 'the Swan', as the competition is known.

It really is a great format, perhaps because it is so little used. A club presents two teams; they play against another club’s two teams side-by-side and the game scores are totalled. No ends or points come into play – just the shots-up. You have to keep a wary eye on your own game, but adjust your tactics in case the other game is going (or not going) according to plan. Great fun.

This year – the centenary year of the competition – the two semi finals pitched Midcalder CC against Haddington CC, and Currie and Balerno CC against Oxenfoord CC. Currie and Balerno and Midcalder prevailed, so the scene was set for a thrilling final. Currie and Balerno’s Andrew Galloway skipped Robin Copland, Raymond Preston and Caitlin Barr against Midcalder’s Stewart Barr, Basil Baird, Andrew Brash and Lesley Barr. The game started off tight but a big steal of two in the fourth end gave the Midcalder team a two-point lead which they added to in the next couple of ends. In the meantime, Currie and Balerno’s Brian Fleming skipped club president Dave Munro, Bob Barr and Andrew Cargill to a small lead in a tight game against Midcalder’s Alan Russell, John Baird, Scott Baird and Graham Young.

Come the eighth end Midcalder led in one game by three shots in the Barr versus Galloway game but were down in the Fleming versus Russell game by two shots. Try as they might, the Galloway team could not get a stone in the four foot behind the cover. They had plenty of chances and did not take one! Meanwhile, on the other sheet, Midcalder had put the squeeze on and managed a two-shot steal to peel their game. A great performance by Midcalder’s two teams; they drew one game and won the other. In so doing they stopped a Currie and Balerno hat trick.

Jack Clark, the managing director of John Swan Ltd presented the trophy at a happy prize giving ceremony in the club rooms immediately after the games. The celebratory party went on well into the night!

Top: Winners of the Swan Trophy, Midcalder CC. Back L-R: Jack Clark (managing director of John Swan Ltd), Stewart Barr, Alan Russell, John Baird, Scott Baird and Andrew Brash. Front: Graham Young, Lesley Barr and Basil Baird. Photo by Ian Millar.

Above: Currie and Balerno CC, the runners-up in the competition. L-R: Jack Clark (managing director of John Swan Ltd), Andrew Galloway, Robin Copland, Andrew Cargill, Dave Munro, Brian Fleming, Raymond Preston, Caitlin Barr and Bob Barr. Photo by Ian Millar.

The two winning skips, Stewart Barr, Jack Clark (MD of John Swan Ltd) and Alan Russell, with the Swan trophy. Photo by Ian Millar.

A Wee Look at the Seniors

I have been having a wee look at the Scottish Senior Championships as I see that their playdowns take place in Greenacres and Forfar, January 6-8.

I can do this now that I am no longer involved. Well – for this year at least! It is always interesting for the serious student of the sport to see how champions of yesteryear face up to those who have come to the competitive game later in their lives. Interesting also to see how knees and joints have faced up to the trauma that the years have bestowed on them. Some wear better than others though it is astonishing, to these eyes at least, to note that the deliveries that served their masters well twenty and thirty years ago still seem up to the task all this time later.

I swear, for example, that if you were to look at Ken Horton throw a stone now and compare his delivery to the Ken Horton that was winning Scottish and Scottish Junior Championships back in the seventies and eighties, you would see not a lot of difference. He is still early into his delivery position and is able to release the stone accurately fairly early by today’s fashion. He was never one of these players who gave the hogline judge much trouble - except maybe on a hack-weight takeout on really keen ice - but the balance and accuracy is still there, witnessed by the fact that he has now won the Scottish Senior Championships twice – once as third to his old mucker, Graeme Adam, and once as skip in his own right.

The rest have to get past Ken and his champion rink of Gordon Butler, Angus Storrie and Eddie Binks before they can say they have done it and are crowned champions. I fancy that Keith Prentice – still smarting after losing two early games in last season’s finals at Hamilton and finding himself out of contention before he really got started – may be one of teams that Ken has his eyes on. Keith has a strong rink in front of him - Lockhart Steele, Robin Aitken and Tommy Fleming – and they have played together for a number of years. This is important at any level of curling. In their first season as champions, they went out to Canada and took on the famous Al Hackner/Rick Lang combination not once, but twice; and twice they won to bring back the gold medals.

Those of us old enough well remember just what a class top end Hackner and Lang were. They represented Canada in the 1985 Silver Broom at the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow and were streets ahead of their opponents. Another advantage that Keith has is that he coaches the junior team skipped by Jay McWilliam. These boys keep him young, but the fact that he coaches at that level has kept him informed and aware.

Last season’s runners-up, Colin Hamilton, Mike Dick, Trevor Dodds and Colin Baxter (replacing Ian MacPherson) will also be there or thereabouts when the fat lady starts warbling. Mike and Colin H are two other examples of the 'same delivery thirty years on' theory and are both fiercely competitive. Trevor and Colin B will be as strong a front end as will be on show – another formidable outfit.

Willie Jamieson returns with the same team from last season. Whisper this, but David Kelly at second has been for lessons with David Murdoch at Greenacres. He has had to change his delivery from tuck to flat foot to stop his leg from falling off and David McGann at lead has resorted to quite the most ridiculous pair of spectacles ever seen on a curling rink. Who knows though? Gordon Kennedy brings steel and tactical nous to the party; all four are good chums on and off the ice; they were semifinalists last season. They could very well challenge.

Graeme Adam has teamed up this season with Bob Kelly, reverting to his favoured team position of third, Stuart Naismith and Jean Lesperance. Many argue that Graeme was the finest tactician of his generation; if he and Bob click, and if the front end play up to their reputation, then he may very well mount a serious challenge as well to pick up his second senior title.

There are others to consider. Old-school teams like Barton Henderson (but will Greig be skipping that team?) will need to face up to newer names (comparatively speaking) like Gary Macfarlane and Ian Gillespie. Past champions like Ronnie Peat will face off against the likes of David Clydesdale and Alan Durno. All to play for!

Now to the ladies and I will be blunt – I don’t know what to tell you! No qualifiers here, all twenty teams go through to the Finals at the Lanarkshire Ice Rink, February 7-12. To me, the championship is as open as the Russian Steppes. More about the girls later.

STOP PRESS!

Since writing this, I have learned that my services are, in fact, required for the district championships! The poor team involved had apparently been right through the card of eligible players that they decided to cut their losses and phone me. They knew I was desperate for a game. I will spare their blushes. Suffice to say that any remote chance they may have had has now vanished – a bit like the snow and ice off the Russian Steppes come the spring.

Get me a phone – quick now. I need to speak to my gym chap. Barman – another gin, please. And I’ll leave the size to your good self.

The Embedded Correspondent

See 'embedding'. I thought it was something completely different. I thought it was something young Lotharios did of an evening once the sun had settled over the horizon. Stranraer has taught me something new - as oft it does - and there was I, your embedded correspondent, at the Double Rink Championship, sponsored by McMillan Hotels, this past weekend. A right good time was had by one and all, let me tell you, including a visit to a very loud couple of pubs by your correspondent - all in the spirit of research, you understand.

But first, by way of explanation, let me give you some background. Clubs, often after playdowns in their local rinks, send two teams down to the championship. There, they find themselves in sections of four and each club plays against the other in a league format, two points for a game won, one point for a game drawn and no points for a game lost. Points are added and the winning club from each of the three sections progresses through to the semifinal. The highest-up second-placed club also progresses through, so that there are four clubs in the semis.

This means a lot of work for the ice staff. Each section had one game on the Friday and two on the Saturday. Put that another way: six full sessions of ice time on the Saturday with all of the preparation in between the games. At the conclusion of the games on both the Friday and the Saturday, there was another couple of hours’ worth of preparation. Aye – different from the old days when a Zamboni would hurtle round the big skating rink at Crossmyloof preparing the ice for the evening curling sessions in about five minutes flat!

And now – a rant! Well – you wouldn’t expect anything else, would you? The Double Rink championship harks back to an earlier, more innocent time when curlers travelled over hill and through valley to compete against the next village when the plough was frozen in the furrow. The Grand Match, the world’s biggest bonspiel, and the Strathcona Cup series between Scotland and Canada work to the same principle. Never mind points and ends; the results are based on shots-up, pure and simple; ends only come into it in the event of a tie. The semis and the finals of the Double Rink Championship use that system. Two teams, each representing their club with pride, try their best to win their game, but have to adjust their tactics depending on what is happening in the other game. This is curling as it used to be played on outdoor ice in the days of the crampit. My own view, shared by quite a few of the competitors and the watchers behind the glass, is that the league section of the competition should revert to the true double-rink format – in other words aggregate scores totalled and be done with all the points for a win and ends won.

The current system within the leagues means that there is not the same need for that furtive look across the boards; the games are too insular; there is not that feeling that there is another team involved, whose fortunes good or bad reflect on you and your team. One of the semifinal match-ups illustrates my point; more of that later.

Onto the competition itself. It was hard-fought and it was tight. Games, never mind league tables, fluctuated like the ebbing tide out in the now ship-less Stranraer harbour. At the end of it all, the Musketeers from Edinburgh found themselves competing against Kilsyth in one semifinal, whilst Stranraer faced off against the highest-up runners-up, Forfar, in the other.

Musketeers obviously like the third ends of matches. Alan Chalmers and his team scored a three and Graham Cormack and his scored a four in their games. Though Graeme Baxter kept things relatively tight in his game and though John Davie got a three right back in his fourth end, the truth was that from the fifth end on in both games, it looked like there was only one winner.

Shot of the semis though was a run back triple that John Davie played – he needed it, mind you and he still lost a two that end!

In the other match, the true nature of the old-fashioned double rink format shone through. Philip Wilson and his team scored a two in their last end to recover from a 6-2 deficit in end five; a great fightback from Philip, Ian Kirkpatrick, John Parker and John Munro, who was substituting for Ben Wilson. They ended up winning their game by one shot. The other game also went to the wire though, to be fair, it was about an end and a half behind all the other games. Two hours twenty-five minutes is an awful long time to play eight ends of curling, people! Anyhow, Stranraer, skipped by Jim Cannon, found themselves three shots down – two in aggregate – playing their last end without the hammer. They needed to steal a two to even up the aggregate score; Stranraer would then go through on ends won. Jim slid out true and managed to hit a double to lie the two shots needed with his last stone. That left David Russell with an open hit for the match, though it was down a floaty piece of ice on the in-turn.

As soon as his stone was laid, there was a audible gasp from the watchers immediately behind the game that spread like wildfire through the rest of the bar. On the ice, the Forfar boys had been already been shouted at: “wow,” was the loud cry. We and they all knew that anything wide of the brush down the left-hand side going away from the bar on the in-turn was a miss, pure and simple. There was a ghastly inevitability as the played stone tracked further and further wide of its target. David, his team mates and the other Forfar team, who had waited to a man to offer support on the ice, could only watch as his shot drifted wide. He later admitted that he jammed the stone back as he put the handle on at the end of his slide. Though he had won his own game by a shot, the overall match had been tied, and Forfar went out on the ends count. Stranraer had qualified from ten shots down an hour earlier and had set themselves up for an exciting looking match against a strong Musketeers team. For Forfar, it was the long drive home through the snow with nothing in their hands but the memories of a guid weekend in the south west of Scotland. You had to feel sorry for them.

And so to the final and another exciting match, pitching as it did the strong-looking local rink from Stranraer against the reigning double rink champions, the Musketeers club from Edinburgh. Gail Munro, who, as well as making the ice, also updated the scores on the Royal Club site (with a little help from her daughter, Robyn) reports on another tight, tight match. Jim Cannon again found himself at the centre of things with his last stone; a hit and stay would secure a win in his game. Sadly for local supporters, his played stone rolled out, so Stranraer 2 had to be content with a peel instead of a one-shot win. Meanwhile, Musketeers 1, skipped again by Alan Chalmers, managed to score a big three in the seventh end of his game against Philip Wilson’s Stranraer 1 team to come home two shots to the good. Despite Stranraer’s best efforts to lay the perfect freeze, Alan was able to pick Philip’s stone perfectly to run him out of stones and secure a two-shot victory in his game. The winners photo is here.

What was particularly impressive about their win is the fact that these boys were all in one of the very loud pubs that I had visited the previous night. There did not seem to be any conspicuous hanging-back when it came to the singing, the dancing, nor indeed the consumption of falling-down juice. A proper curling weekend then, from which Stranraer will take some time to recover!

Gail pebbling the ice is by Robin Copland

The Ladies

I worry about the ladies, really I do. In season 2011-12 we have only managed to persuade nine teams to enter the national championship. Nine teams, or put that another way – 36 curlers. It’s not a lot, is it? I did a wee 'back of the fag packet' exercise and looked down the list of previous Scottish junior champions. The list goes back all the way to Alison Aitken’s winning Stranraer team in 1981. Competing in that final was none other than a certain Jackie Steele; Jackie is still competing in the Scottish Championships, but she is the only one of her generation still playing at that level. More of her later.

The reason I feel able to go all the way back to 1981 – apart from Jackie – is that there is a huge number of Canadian ladies of that vintage still competing at national level. There seems to be something about the Scottish mentality that rubbishes anyone’s ability, once they reach their mid-thirties. Shame really. It wasn’t that long ago that the Scottish championship was populated with the likes of the Loudon and Milne sisters, Susan Kesley, Fran Stretton, Jenny Barr, Rhona Martin, Debbie Knox, Margaret Morton, Janice Rankin, Christine Cannon – oh I could go on, but you get the picture.

I have written before about how we have lost huge talents to the game like Kirsty Hay, Gillian Barr and Julia Ewart. To that list of august personalities, we need now to add Kelly Wood, who has followed her heart to Canada. These are all curlers whom Scotland can ill afford to lose, but there is an enormous lesson to be learned from their departure and it is this: never, ever – and in case you missed that, those of you with some say in our great sport, NEVER – invest all of your hard-earned cash in the one 'great white hope'. Remember the lesson that shouts down from history and make sure that there is money left over for – well, if you want to be blunt – the likes of Rhona Martin twenty years ago. Rhona then was the perennial runner-up. She went on, as we all know, to play the most delicate of shots to win an Olympic Gold Medal with her team of Debbie Knox, Fiona MacDonald, Janice Rankin and Margaret Morton, but would Rhona receive investment right now if she were twenty-five and competing at Scottish level? An interesting question for everyone to ponder...

Worrying then, in that context, is the dearth of those who have competed at international junior level in the past fifteen years or so. These are people who will still have that competitive edge, I am sure. They came into the game at the start of the coaching revolution, so should have the basics right. A fair bit of money and time was spent on them, developing their talents to such a level that they were able to go out into the bear pit of a national championship final and hold it all together well enough to win. These are people, in other words, with that indefinable quality that some call 'bottle' and others describe, more prosaically perhaps, as 'an ability to perform under pressure'. For every Rachael Simms there is a Vicky Sloan is all that I am saying and I, for one, would love to see Vicky, for example, back competing at the very top level and, if not winning, then providing those who do go onto win with a stern test in a competitive environment. That’s what I love about the Scottish men’s championship – there are four or five teams out there that could possibly win it and another two or three who will win the occasional game against the top two or three teams. It’s a bear pit.

It should be the High Heid Yin’s ambition to put a ladies' team on the podium at European, World and ultimately Olympic Championships. One of the ways of doing that is to provide our winners with a national championship worthy of the name. I want to see twenty-five teams entering the championships, with four or five of them being realistic contenders.

So let’s look first at the juniors – having got that off my chest – and see if we can identify the winners of this year’s competition and – maybe – the next Rhona Martin, Jackie Lockhart or Eve Muirhead.

First up, let’s rejoice in the fact that we have twelve entrants for the junior championships this year. Let us also rejoice in the work that some dedicated people put into developing their junior charges in places like Lockerbie, Greenacres, Murrayfield, Stirling, Stranraer and Hamilton – to name but six. Let us also pause to thank Nancy Murdoch for her pivotal role five years ago, when she came up with the idea of introducing an under-17s circuit, for out of those efforts have sprung twelve teams, all competing for the honour of going to the World Junior Championships to represent their country in 2012. The two teams that leap out from the twelve are those skipped by Hannah Fleming and Jennifer Dodds. Hannah skipped her team to runners-up spots in both the Scottish Junior and Scottish Ladies' championships last year – a stellar achievement forever blighted in their minds by the fact that they came second in both competitions. She, Rebecca Kesley, Alice Spence and Abi Brown took nothing but credit from their performance. And here is an interesting rub to add to the mix: after what seemed like season after season, the team has changed! Lauren Gray, a previous Scottish junior champion skip in her own right, joins the team in place of Rebecca Kesley, who now plays third in Hannah’s main rival team this year, the one skipped by Jennifer Dodds.

Do you not just love this? Obviously, it is maybe not so pleasant for those involved, but for the independent third party looking in from the sidelines, we really do not wish to be anywhere else but wherever it is that they first cross swords! The draw, rightly, has kept them apart in the junior qualifiers in Ayr at the beginning of December, but their meetings (I use the plural advisedly) will, I think, showcase the finest that we have to offer in the junior ladies game. Jennifer’s front end is Mhairi Baird and Vicky Wright. This is a strong-looking combination that will push Hannah very hard indeed and may very well end up winning the championship outright. We will await with baited breath the outcome to be revealed!

One of Lauren’s erstwhile team mates, Tasha Aitken plays third to Jennifer Martin with a front end of Fiona Telfer and Mhairi Anderson. Tasha is a former Scottish junior champion and Mhairi played in the final of the championship two seasons ago. Expect them to be at the top end of the table. Gina Aitken, Katy Richardson, Rowena Kerr and Rachel Hannen bring a curling pedigree that needs to be respected. I think that their time will come, but maybe not this year. Och, but I have said that before and been proved wrong, so who is to say that it won’t happen again?

And so to the ladies. Well, you really cannot look much beyond Eve Muirhead, Anna Sloan, Vicki Adams and Claire Hamilton, can you? They have already carried all before them at the European playdowns; they sailed through the competition serenely and unruffled. They are a talented foursome and no mistake. I expect them to do the same thing at the Scottish, but I am loving the reaction that I know I am provoking in Stranraer, Currie, Kilmarnock and Stonehaven as four curlers by the names of Munro, Barr, Reid and Lockhart read these inflammatory words!

Make no mistake that Jackie Lockhart, Karen Kennedy, Kay Adams and Sarah Macintyre will bring their multi-world gold medal winning pedigree to this year’s championships. Jackie won her first international medal as far back as 1983; she skipped her team to World Gold in Bismarck in 2002; as recently as 2007 she played third to Kelly Wood and won a Silver Medal in the Füssen European championships. Karen Kennedy is a two-time world junior champion. Kay Adams is a two-time world junior champion and Sarah has won that particular championship three times. Kay is Vicki’s sister; Jackie and Sarah used to play with Eve. They know and like each other – but on the rink? Four wasps circling and waiting quietly. Just you watch!

Sarah Reid, who skipped Eve in the very first of her four world junior championships, has been felled by injury this season, but she, Lorna Vevers (who used to play with Jackie and Eve – oh, I could go on!), Rachael Simms and Barbara McPake will not lie down. Nor will Kerry Barr, Helen King, Rhiann Macleod (who played with Eve and Anna Sloan last season and who won the Scottish ladies, the Scottish junior and the World junior championships – don’t you just love all of this?) and Kerry’s sister, Caitlin.

And nor will my chum Gail Munro. Oh no. Rest assured that Lindsay Cumming, Kerry Adams-Taylor and the magnificently named TBA will also come to this particular party with guns holstered and ready to shoot.

So – maybe I am worried, but do you know what? It should be fun. Don’t miss it!

Inside the Scottish Mixed

You know that you’re getting old when you walk into the Scottish Senior Mixed Championship and start seeing young people on the ice. It’s ridiculous. Jim Cannon is a junior; his wife, Christine, is 26; Marion Craig, one of their conquerors in the semifinal of the high road – more of that later – still looks the same as she did when I first met her yesterday morning, thirty-odd years ago. It’s a nightmare!

Anyhow, onto the curling. I don’t suppose there can be a finer spot than the North West Castle hotel in Stranraer for a competition like this. Good food; good cheer; plenty of drink on tap to soothe and rehydrate the thirsty soul, and ice on the interesting side of tricky to keep everyone honest and fully attentive. There were four tough sections of five teams, so everyone was guaranteed four games. Winners went straight through to the high road semifinals and the section runners-up had the consolation of the low road semifinals to console them.

In Section A, holder Archie Craig tied on six points with Donald Rutherford and Kevin Fearn. Archie sneaked through to the high road semifinal on a higher end count with Donald edging Kevin by three ends. You had to feel for Kevin. He only lost one game and finished on a higher points total than two other teams, Gary Rutherford and Robert Smellie – both of whom qualified for the low road.

Jim Cannon’s powerful looking local team – wife Christine with Peter and Anne Wilson – dominated Section B with four straight wins. They were a frightening twenty-six shots up at the end of section proceedings. The same thing happened in Section C where another local team skipped by Dick Adams (another youngster, by the way!) finished three points ahead of section runner-up Gary Macfarlane.

And so to section D. I wish I could report a different result, seeing as how we came third! Truth be told, Sandy Nelson was way ahead of the pack and finished on eight points. Robert Smellie played a delicate hit and stick against Jim Black to peel his game and qualify for the low road semifinal. The rest of us retired bloody but unbowed; we will be back next year – make no mistake!

And now for the surprises! The oldies (forgive me chaps and chappesses!) took on the youngsters, played them and beat them. Archie Craig, with wife Marion and Robin and Yvonne Aitken played a canny game against Jim Cannon. The first three ends were blanked! A big four scored in the sixth end sealed things for Archie and co. In the other semifinal – again a tight affair – Sandy Nelson scored a two in the eighth end to secure his final spot with a win over Dick Adams.

The final, according to chief umpire for the weekend, Bill Scott, was a great game of curling with both teams firing on all cylinders in front of a typically large and vociferous south west Scotland audience in the bar. Bill reports, “Coming into the last end peels at six shots all, the two teams fought to build a defensive wall in front of their shots in the house with advantage swinging back and forth. With his last stone played, Archie had one white stone lying shot in amongst several reds – well defended from direct attack, but slightly vulnerable to a perfectly played inwick.”

Sandy came within inches of making the shot, but just missed, leaving Archie, Marion, Robin and Yvonne champions for the second year running.

All in all, a great weekend’s fun and fellowship on the ice. If you are of an age and so minded, you should certainly consider putting together a team for next year’s championship in October 2012.

The Season Ahead: The Men

Now let’s see – where are we?

Spring – that was summer; summer was winter; autumn is summer and now it’s winter again. Aye, it’s a confusing old world right enough but as far as I am concerned, I should still be golfing. Younger readers may care to note that the older you get, the faster time flies by. Which brings me neatly to the new curling season that beckons – indeed has started for most now that we are into October.

First the bad news: Lochgoilhead has gone. I appreciate that for those of us who inhabit the more populous parts of our glorious nation, this matters not a jot nor a tittle, but pause and bear with me for just a second. This was the ice rink that served the likes of Dunoon, Oban and the Argyll peninsula; this was the rink that produced some great raw talent – Ross Paterson, for example was in last season’s European Championship rink and is playing with David Murdoch this season. We may scoff, but Lochgoilhead was a buzzing curling centre in its time and we curlers should mourn its passing. The Magnum Centre in Irvine is also no more, though there are other rinks in the area to pick up its displaced curlers.

Good news as well though as investment has been announced for the Dewar's Rink in Perth and a new Dumfries curling facility has been opened successfully. We need to cherish and look after our facilities, be they council-run or privately-owned; be they modern or 'traditional', for without the rinks to play on, our great game dies on its feet.

We have an exciting year of competition ahead as well, with some new teams getting together and, of course, some older teams sticking together and giving things another go. I wonder if the Scottish Men's Championship is not as open as it has been for a while. Tom Brewster is back with his Scottish Champion team from last season of Greg Drummond, Scott Andrews and Michael Goodfellow. Having been around the block and won a silver medal at the World Championship, they will fancy their chances to repeat last season’s epic performance. I fancy though, that they will have to get past David Murdoch again if they are to do that.

This season David has moved Glen Muirhead up to third, Ross Paterson comes in at second and Richard Woods plays lead stones as before. You might argue that the loss of Warwick Smith weakens the team, but do not make the mistake of underestimating Glen’s talent at third, nor indeed replacement Ross Paterson’s contribution at second. This is a strong-looking team and will challenge for the Scottish title right to the end.

David Smith returns to skip duties after a number of seasons of playing third – most recently to Hammy McMillan. Both he and his third player Warwick Smith have less time for curling this season and will probably only play the Edinburgh International, Perth Masters and Scottish Championship. With a front end comprising Craig Wilson and Ross Hepburn, they will be the most-capped team on the ice come the finals of the Scottish and anyone who fancies their chances of the title will have to find a way past them. It will not be easy for any of the other pretenders to the title!

Ewan MacDonald is taking a back seat this season, though he will be competitive – any team with Graeme Connal, Pete Loudon and Euan Byers in it will be competitive. I get the feeling that they are playing for the love of the game and the fun this season, though I might have that one horribly wrong – we shall see!

Sandy Reid’s team from last season returns with Neil MacArthur replacing Scott Macleod at second. Moray Combe and Dave Soutar remain in place. I was impressed by their showing in the Scottish last season and would not be surprised to see them back in the hunt this time around as well.

Of the younger skips, I am looking forward to watching Dave Edwards steer his team through the season. He has brought in Scottish Junior Champion skip from last season, John Penny, at third. Scott Macleod moves in at second and the experienced Colin Campbell stays at lead. The top end both play in Aberdeen, so will have plenty of chances to play and practise together. I also expect a challenge from Logan Gray, Al Guthrie, Steve Mitchell and Sandy Gilmour. Interestingly, Ross Paterson was going to play in that team, but there was a kind of domino-like ripple caused by Warwick Smith’s retiral from Dave Murdoch’s team. Ross has gone to Dave, and Steve has come to Logan from young Ally Fraser’s original team. Difficult to keep up, really!

Onto the junior men: warm favourites for this year’s title is the team skipped by Jay McWilliam, with Scottish Champion third, Colin Dick, Grant Hardie moving down to second from third in the team last season and Scottish Champion lead, Billy Morton, making up the four. Their strongest challenge may very well come from Blair Fraser and his team, which includes Jay’s displaced second, Struan Wood, throwing lead rocks, Hamilton McMillan playing second and Thomas Sloan at third. I hear that young Thomas has suffered a pretty bad injury that may keep him out of things for two or three months, so I do not know how they will cope in the first half of the season. Hopefully he will have recovered enough to get some match practice in before the championships start in earnest early next year. All the best to him on his road to recovery.

I am liking the look, mind you, of the team that Kyle Smith has put together. Thomas Muirhead plays third stones, Kyle Waddell is the second and Kerr Drummond brings his wealth of championship-winning experience to the party at lead. These boys are passionate about the game, passionate about winning and all throw the stone pretty well to boot. If they can channel their energy towards winning the really big games and not let the small stuff get them down, they could very well end up with the Murray Trophy early next year.

Interestingly, they have former World Junior Champion, Robin Halliday, coaching them this season. He knows his way around an ice rink and it is good to see him helping develop young talent. While I am on that subject, we should take our hats off to the likes of Keith Prentice, Debbie Knox and Robin himself for the work they are putting in to the game at elite level. There are (and have been) others out there who have done the same kind of work – you know who you are and we should doff our hats in your general direction.

Expect challenges also from some of the younger rinks who are moving towards the age when they might expect to reach the last four of the championship. I will be looking out for Duncan Menzies and Bruce Mouat – to name but two – to make a strong challenge this season.

Right – that’s enough for now. I will put together some thoughts about the two ladies competitions in the next week or two in the fond hope that his nibs will allow me to post two blogs in the one month.

Easy, tiger! Walk first – then run!