Copey writes:
I don’t know whether it is just me, but there is something very special about the Scottish Championships. I only made it to seven final stages of our national championships. Maybe nowadays those curlers who make it year after year become blasé about it; maybe the chances that the top curlers get to curl overseas – far more than we ever got in our pre-funding, pre-Ryanair day – mean that the Scottish has less of a frisson than it used to do. I remember the very first time I ever competed – it was Perth in 1978. You walked in to the old rink and immediately you knew that you were at an event that was beyond the run-of-the-mill. There was something in the air.
I still get that feeling of excitement to this day – especially on finals day. The stakes are high; the competition is fierce; nerves need to be of steel and, let this be said, the quality of play on offer rarely disappoints.
Of course, they get it easy nowadays. The quality of ice that they play on is the stuff of dreams to those of our generation used to tracks and fall-backs. A nipper in those far-off days was the noisy child in the stands. Our defensive hands were shown on tricky ice and the game was a draw-free zone until a team was down. The free guard was still strutting his stuff outside Buckingham Palace and misses there were a-plenty.
Work kept me away during the week. I was in Amersham, of all places – at the northern extremities of the Metropolitan line. Here’s a thing; when you get to the outskirts of our capital city, the 'tube' is no more a tube than the Glasgow-Edinburgh express. There’s a fact for you to share with your mates over a thoughtful cigar and no mistake. Amersham it was and with a dodgy internet connection to boot. I followed things from afar and occasionally with a buffering delay of an hour or two built in. I followed progress and wished that I was somewhere else – and maybe some time else as well! We live for our youth.
And so to Sunday; at last, we were making the trip north for an old-fashioned day out. The ladies' final was first up and, with due respect to other feisty competitors, the cream of Scottish ladies' curling had risen to the top with the eye-watering prospect of Eve Muirhead versus Hannah Fleming. Who would have thought ten years ago that a curling writer could have written the following of a Scottish ladies final? In international competition, the eight competitors have amassed between them 24 Gold medals and 7 Silver medals. That is an astonishing statement to be able to make and speaks volumes of the quality on offer in Scottish ladies' curling.
We, the watchers, settled back on the bleachers – all but full for the final - and were prepared to be entertained. The Fleming team came out of the blocks at a gallop and their 2 in end five gave them a 4-2 half-time lead. What happened thereafter will be mulled over by the experts for a while to come. Maybe they relaxed a tad; maybe they lost a bit of focus; maybe my old mate and new Scottish senior champion, David Hay, paid a little visit to the Brocks fireworks factory in the break, but whatever it was, the Muirhead team, from hanging on in the first five ends dominated the business end of the game. A big 3 in the sixth end set the tone. They were four shots to the good coming home. Debbie Knox, Hannah’s faithful coach for many a long season, was called onto the ice deep into the tenth end (maybe her input would have been more valuable earlier on in the second half), but by then it was too late and a clearly delighted Muirhead team celebrated a famous win against a team that will be a real threat in years to come.
And so to the men. Logan Gray had tweeted for supporters to come out dressed in 'loudmouth' gear. This is great for the game – colour and excitement. Interestingly, there was a general feeling in the ice hall of support for the underdog. Keith MacLennan and Sandy Gilmour both pitched up in suits that took the breath away. Outrageous trousers were in evidence and Team Gray had electric green shirts and dapper green, black and white check trousers. Sensibly, space up the stairs was limited, so the bleachers were again all but full. It took you back to the old days when crowds were numbered in their thousands. There was a real atmosphere down in the ice hall that added to the occasion.
The men came out. Now, everyone has a view on funding; on five man teams; on the Olympic effect; on curling’s own West Lothian question; on the effects of coaching and all of the rest of it. But, I don’t care. Really, I don’t. When it comes to those nervous slides in a darkened ice hall with the TV cameras waiting and a big expectant crowd sitting hard by the rink - that’s the test. That’s what separates the kids from the grown-ups; it’s curler v curler and that’s what makes the Scottish so special in the curling calendar. You can feel the tension – the nerves. There’s a kind of electricity in the air. Static. A buzz.
Add the side stories. Logan and Michael were Stirling Young Curlers together a decade ago; Ross Paterson and Richard Woods played front end for David Murdoch last season; Tom and David were rivals on ice for years before this season; the same two were team mates in a World Junior Championship almost twenty years ago and played together as kids in Lockerbie. Scott Andrews was up the stairs where he had been on the ice in the previous two finals. Scott, Tom, Greg and Michael were attempting to join curling immortals, Hay (Chuck), Bryden, Glen, Howie and McMillan (Hammy) as three-in-a-row winners of their national championships. On the other hand, Logan, Ross, Al and Boobsy were going for their first win in their national championships. Underdog versus incumbent. I could go on.
And then it was all over! I am going to be honest. I thought that Logan’s last draw against two in the second end was good from his hand. So did the sweepers, who did not really hit it hard until about two thirds or so of the way down the rink. As it crossed the hogline, it seemed to suddenly lose weight. By now the sweepers were pounding into it as if their lives depended on it. Then it stopped – agonisingly short and it was a steal of 2 for the Brewster team. And that was that.
In truth, it was always going to be difficult to fight back from three shots down, but when you are not quite getting the ice (as Logan admitted he wasn’t) and when they are playing just that little bit better than you are, it becomes a long, lonely struggle against the odds. Eventually, Logan and his team offered their hands after eight ends and Team Brewster became Team Scotland. Scott was down on the ice as fast as a butcher’s dog and the five of them celebrated a great win. Logan and his team will be back to fight another day. Words are cheap, I know, in their situation, but they are all talented curlers and hopefully this taste of the big time will whet their appetite for more.
What of the World Championships? More of that later but suffice to say for the moment that we have two world-class teams going out and with a following wind…
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
The Strathcona Cup
Copey writes:
In amongst all of the regional playdowns that have been going on in the various age-group and gender Scottish championships these past few weeks – all of them hugely important, of course – a group of middle- to late middle-aged (0K - old!) men have disappeared off on a jaunt to Canada: twenty of them have flown off to the far west; a further twenty are in the centre of the country and twenty more are curling in the east.
Let me admit something up front here; I was on the 2003 centenary tour to Canada, so there will be the slightest smidgin of bias in this blog! I was also lucky enough to compete in the final stages of quite a few Scottish championships and consider my one appearance in a world championship as the highlight of my curling life, but playing as a member of the Scottish Strathcona Cup team in 2003 is right up there as well – albeit in a different and perhaps more private kind of a way.
We need to get real – it is different. First, you are picked to go on the tour and there are various criteria used to whittle down over 90 applicants to the 60 tourists. Patently, curling ability is one of them, but not the only one; the ability to win playdowns is not high on the agenda, if only because there aren’t any! Actually, perhaps the most important criterion is the ability to get on with 19 disparate people over a period of three weeks without irrevocably falling out.
One of my 2003 team mates put it all rather nicely when he described going on tour as “not the holiday of a lifetime, but certainly the experience of a lifetime”. Touring is a marathon. Each day starts with “morning class”. This longstanding tradition was introduced to curling by the late Collie Campbell, a noted Canadian curling personality and administrator. It involves gin is all I am saying!
Normally, there are two sessions of curling per day; often but not always, one of the tourist teams is off session by session. Even with the off session every fifth or sixth game – even then, it is a tough gig, so you had better be fit and ready. You travel around the country from rink to rink in a blur of curling, sleeping, drinking, fun and fellowship.
Back in the day, the Strathcona Cup tour travelled the length and breadth of the country. Pre-war, tourists travelled by ship and the tour lasted six or seven weeks. Nowadays, the tour lasts around three weeks and tourists can expect to play around thirty games of curling in all kinds of different rinks – from small two-sheeter village rinks to the grand eight-sheeters in the cities. Some of the curling clubs are run by the members for the members; others are part of a larger country club complex with all the mod-cons and luxury you would expect. What astounds the first-time Scot visiting Canada to curl is the sheer number of rinks – every village, township, town and city will have at least one rink. The sport is huge over there; it is part of the social fabric of the country. If you meet a Canadian, they will know someone who curls and have probably have had a go themselves.
Everyone knows Eve Muirhead, Hammy McMillan, Tom Brewster, David Murdoch and David Smith; they are all more famous in Canada than they are in the land of their birth. It’s a fact. Scotland is the home of the game, but Canada has adopted it and developed it beyond our wildest dreams.
Another fact for you: the standard of club curler out there is, in my experience, a lot higher than it is over here in Scotland. We would regularly come up against a team of what you might think of as “dirt-trackers”. Then, they would get on the ice and the one shot of which none of them seemed in the least scared was the cold draw to the four-foot. Time and again, we would be lying nicely and time and again, the skip would calmly wander down to the hack and cover the pot-lid!
Another thing we noticed was the consistency of the ice. It is, of course, a lot easier to make ice in a dry and very cold climate than it is in our mixed and often quite wet weather. All of the rinks that we played on were dedicated curling rinks – another factor that helps the ice technicians. But it was always keen and true; in thirty-odd games, I only played on one sheet that you would describe as “drug”.
Anyhow, back to the Strathcona Cup 2013. They are coming to the end of their tour as I write and you can follow their last week – indeed you can read about the whole tour - on their website here.
It is a grand old tradition and it gives many curlers their only shout at playing for Scotland. OK – it’s not a world championship, but in its own way, these five-year get-togethers between the curlers of Scotland and Canada are every bit as important. If you get a chance to go – take it!
In amongst all of the regional playdowns that have been going on in the various age-group and gender Scottish championships these past few weeks – all of them hugely important, of course – a group of middle- to late middle-aged (0K - old!) men have disappeared off on a jaunt to Canada: twenty of them have flown off to the far west; a further twenty are in the centre of the country and twenty more are curling in the east.
Let me admit something up front here; I was on the 2003 centenary tour to Canada, so there will be the slightest smidgin of bias in this blog! I was also lucky enough to compete in the final stages of quite a few Scottish championships and consider my one appearance in a world championship as the highlight of my curling life, but playing as a member of the Scottish Strathcona Cup team in 2003 is right up there as well – albeit in a different and perhaps more private kind of a way.
We need to get real – it is different. First, you are picked to go on the tour and there are various criteria used to whittle down over 90 applicants to the 60 tourists. Patently, curling ability is one of them, but not the only one; the ability to win playdowns is not high on the agenda, if only because there aren’t any! Actually, perhaps the most important criterion is the ability to get on with 19 disparate people over a period of three weeks without irrevocably falling out.
One of my 2003 team mates put it all rather nicely when he described going on tour as “not the holiday of a lifetime, but certainly the experience of a lifetime”. Touring is a marathon. Each day starts with “morning class”. This longstanding tradition was introduced to curling by the late Collie Campbell, a noted Canadian curling personality and administrator. It involves gin is all I am saying!
Normally, there are two sessions of curling per day; often but not always, one of the tourist teams is off session by session. Even with the off session every fifth or sixth game – even then, it is a tough gig, so you had better be fit and ready. You travel around the country from rink to rink in a blur of curling, sleeping, drinking, fun and fellowship.
Back in the day, the Strathcona Cup tour travelled the length and breadth of the country. Pre-war, tourists travelled by ship and the tour lasted six or seven weeks. Nowadays, the tour lasts around three weeks and tourists can expect to play around thirty games of curling in all kinds of different rinks – from small two-sheeter village rinks to the grand eight-sheeters in the cities. Some of the curling clubs are run by the members for the members; others are part of a larger country club complex with all the mod-cons and luxury you would expect. What astounds the first-time Scot visiting Canada to curl is the sheer number of rinks – every village, township, town and city will have at least one rink. The sport is huge over there; it is part of the social fabric of the country. If you meet a Canadian, they will know someone who curls and have probably have had a go themselves.
Everyone knows Eve Muirhead, Hammy McMillan, Tom Brewster, David Murdoch and David Smith; they are all more famous in Canada than they are in the land of their birth. It’s a fact. Scotland is the home of the game, but Canada has adopted it and developed it beyond our wildest dreams.
Another fact for you: the standard of club curler out there is, in my experience, a lot higher than it is over here in Scotland. We would regularly come up against a team of what you might think of as “dirt-trackers”. Then, they would get on the ice and the one shot of which none of them seemed in the least scared was the cold draw to the four-foot. Time and again, we would be lying nicely and time and again, the skip would calmly wander down to the hack and cover the pot-lid!
Another thing we noticed was the consistency of the ice. It is, of course, a lot easier to make ice in a dry and very cold climate than it is in our mixed and often quite wet weather. All of the rinks that we played on were dedicated curling rinks – another factor that helps the ice technicians. But it was always keen and true; in thirty-odd games, I only played on one sheet that you would describe as “drug”.
Anyhow, back to the Strathcona Cup 2013. They are coming to the end of their tour as I write and you can follow their last week – indeed you can read about the whole tour - on their website here.
It is a grand old tradition and it gives many curlers their only shout at playing for Scotland. OK – it’s not a world championship, but in its own way, these five-year get-togethers between the curlers of Scotland and Canada are every bit as important. If you get a chance to go – take it!
Tuesday, January 01, 2013
The Scottish Curling Tour
Copey writes:
I have been impressed by the work that the committee of the Goldline Scottish Curling Tour has done these past couple of seasons. They have gathered together a series of competitions, worked out a set of rules and let the individual competition organisers get on with running their own competitions, organising sponsorship, getting teams to compete and all of the other palaver that comes with the territory. Basically, the organisers get to run their competitions in peace and all that the tour want is a list of winners, runners-up, losing semifinalists and losing quarterfinalists. The tour does the rest. Winners get 10 points; runners-up get 7; losing semifinalists take five and losing quarterfinalists are awarded 3 points. A league table is drawn up and it’s on to the next competition.
As a meerkat once opined, in a moment of insurable weakness – "simples".
These guys got things sorted out. The first thing they did was to sit round the table and ask themselves, "What does Scottish curling really need?" They looked at their answer and worked out a mission statement that clearly and transparently told everyone what they were getting into, they wrote it down and published it online for all the world to see. The meerkat is shaking with glee; if he’s not careful, he is going to fall over and – if you’re a meerkat (which thank the Lord, I’m not, sir) – that can have serious consequences, to wit a painful death.
Without their permission (but I don’t think they will mind), I publish the mission statement below.
• Provide structure to the existing circuit of competitive events
• Grow number and quality of competitive curling events around Scotland
• Provide high-quality competitions in Scotland for international teams looking to improve their game outside of the European tour
• Establish a 2nd tier competitive path for graduating juniors wishing to stay in the competitive game
• Improve participation by encouraging strong local teams to travel to different rinks.
Everything about the above is just 'right'. The quality of teams taking part in the various competitions has been excellent – there is nothing 2nd tier about the likes of Tom Brewster, David Edwards, Ewan MacDonald, Logan Gray and Warwick Smith. There have even been the odd foreign teams attracted over to compete in the old country.
The final round takes place at the Petrofac Aberdeen Open, February 1-3. Any one of four teams can lift the prize that Kyle Smith won last year on his way to the Scottish Junior Championship. David Edwards currently leads the pack on 23 points; Frazer Hare, winner of two of the earlier events is on 21; the consistent Murray Young is on 20 points and Hannah Fleming, who won the Braehead Open, is on 18 points.
The next time you see Neil Joss, Iain Stobo, Gavin Fleming, Colin Hamilton, David Edwards, Paul Stevenson, Graham Shedden, Jude McFarlane or Kay Adams in an ice rink – do me a favour and buy them pint, will you? They’re the committee and we should all doff our caps in their general direction.
Good work, chaps.
And a Good New Year to one and all while I’m at it.
I have been impressed by the work that the committee of the Goldline Scottish Curling Tour has done these past couple of seasons. They have gathered together a series of competitions, worked out a set of rules and let the individual competition organisers get on with running their own competitions, organising sponsorship, getting teams to compete and all of the other palaver that comes with the territory. Basically, the organisers get to run their competitions in peace and all that the tour want is a list of winners, runners-up, losing semifinalists and losing quarterfinalists. The tour does the rest. Winners get 10 points; runners-up get 7; losing semifinalists take five and losing quarterfinalists are awarded 3 points. A league table is drawn up and it’s on to the next competition.
As a meerkat once opined, in a moment of insurable weakness – "simples".
These guys got things sorted out. The first thing they did was to sit round the table and ask themselves, "What does Scottish curling really need?" They looked at their answer and worked out a mission statement that clearly and transparently told everyone what they were getting into, they wrote it down and published it online for all the world to see. The meerkat is shaking with glee; if he’s not careful, he is going to fall over and – if you’re a meerkat (which thank the Lord, I’m not, sir) – that can have serious consequences, to wit a painful death.
Without their permission (but I don’t think they will mind), I publish the mission statement below.
• Provide structure to the existing circuit of competitive events
• Grow number and quality of competitive curling events around Scotland
• Provide high-quality competitions in Scotland for international teams looking to improve their game outside of the European tour
• Establish a 2nd tier competitive path for graduating juniors wishing to stay in the competitive game
• Improve participation by encouraging strong local teams to travel to different rinks.
Everything about the above is just 'right'. The quality of teams taking part in the various competitions has been excellent – there is nothing 2nd tier about the likes of Tom Brewster, David Edwards, Ewan MacDonald, Logan Gray and Warwick Smith. There have even been the odd foreign teams attracted over to compete in the old country.
The final round takes place at the Petrofac Aberdeen Open, February 1-3. Any one of four teams can lift the prize that Kyle Smith won last year on his way to the Scottish Junior Championship. David Edwards currently leads the pack on 23 points; Frazer Hare, winner of two of the earlier events is on 21; the consistent Murray Young is on 20 points and Hannah Fleming, who won the Braehead Open, is on 18 points.
The next time you see Neil Joss, Iain Stobo, Gavin Fleming, Colin Hamilton, David Edwards, Paul Stevenson, Graham Shedden, Jude McFarlane or Kay Adams in an ice rink – do me a favour and buy them pint, will you? They’re the committee and we should all doff our caps in their general direction.
Good work, chaps.
And a Good New Year to one and all while I’m at it.
Friday, December 14, 2012
This Season's Interesting Experiments
Copey writes:
There are a couple of interesting experiments going on in Scottish curling this season, demonstrating if nothing else that the sport has moved on a bit since I last threw a stone in anger. Actually, I throw a lot of my stones in anger these days – largely because I am still recovering from the awfulness of the previous effort, if you catch my drift. Still and all, at least I can still enjoy the odd sojourn on the ice, which is more than can be said for those who chose rugby as their sport of choice. They just get angry at Tongans from the stands.
Back to my point. The first experiment is that of the 'five-man team'. Tom Brewster’s successful Scottish champions of the last couple of seasons have been joined this season by none other than David Murdoch. Views vary on the wisdom of such a move. The traditionalist view is that a curling team has four people and that to build up the all-important team dynamic, those four need to learn to win and, perhaps more importantly, to lose together as a team. Those of a cynical nature (not that there are any of those in curling) point to Tom and co’s early season form up to and including their recent foray at the European Championships in Karlstad, Sweden and, when they have picked themselves up off the floor, splutter indignantly, “I told you so.”
The modern approach here in Scotland seems to allow that the 'five-man-team' has a future. There are a number of outside influences at work and there is cross-fertilisation from other successful sports. This comes with the territory. The more money that comes into the top level of the sport, the more influence the paymasters will demand.
Be very careful though; it is not that this experiment has not been tried before. We could, for example, talk about Rhona Martin’s Olympic team from 2002. The original team was Rhona, Margaret Morton, Fiona Macdonald and Janice Rankin. They had already come fourth in the 1999 Chamonix European Championships before going on to win the Scottish Championship (Rhona’s breakthrough championship, by the way) in 2000; they went to the Glasgow World Championships with Debbie Knox as alternate. During the first half of season 2000-2001, Debbie and Margaret swapped in and out of the team event-by-event, until later on in about the November or so, when Margaret found herself as the permanent alternate and Debbie was installed as the third player.
Without the chance really to settle, they actually missed out on competing in the European championship that year. Later on, they lost their Scottish Championship title - it was won by Julia Ewart, Heather Byers, Nancy Murdoch and Lynn Cameron. The rules in play at the time meant that Julia and her team had to get all the way to the final of the World Championships before a play-off would have been triggered between them and Rhona. They missed out, failing at the semi-final stage and the sighs of relief from Team Martin nearly blew various houses down. It was therefore Rhona and her team who went out to the European Championships in Vierumäki in December 2001. Although there were a couple of tight games, their 2-5 record and sixth spot did not stoke the boilers of confidence.
Team Martin had settled down for the Vierumäki Europeans but to continue to swap players in and out of the team must have been disconcerting for those involved in Karlstad this season.
Rhona Martin went on with a completely settled team by this stage to the Olympics. Apart from a late round-robin hiccup, they carried all before them and ended up winning a fantastic Gold Medal for GB – the only team to do so, by the way, in the modern era.
Now, I know Tom well and he is a fine fellow. The last thing that he (or any of the other players or coaches for that matter) would ever do is dissemble. He is on record as taking the critics and the likes of me on full frontal. His post-championship interview on the Thursday at Karlstad is a direct rebuttal of what I am suggesting here. He was fully-supportive of all the technical changes and team rotation that we have seen. He blames the relatively poor Karlstad showing on illness and poor play. The evidence, anecdotal though it may be, might suggest otherwise.
Ulrika Bergman – remember her? She was Anette Norberg’s alternate player though that massive run of success that the Swedish ladies had in the noughties. Hardly got a game; never even a look-in! She was not a threat – which meant that the four in the team could concentrate on playing and bonding and that she could concentrate on doing all the important stuff that an alternate does at international championships – stone-matching, liaising between the bench and the team, and morale-boosting.
Ever heard of Terry Meek or Adam Enright? Neither had I. They were Kevin Martin’s alternates between 2008 and 2010. Chucked a couple of stones here and there (Meek is actually credited with a 100% statistical record for the stones he threw), but were they ever going to replace Ben Hebert, Marc Kennedy, John Morris or indeed Kevin Martin on a permanent basis? You may as well ask if David Cameron is about to join the World Socialist movement.
Look, I could go on but I think that those at the top of our game here in Scotland, and by extension, the UK, need to take valuable lessons from all of this.
• First of all, be very careful about introducing uncertainty to a team that is working. David Murdoch is one of the finest players that Scotland has ever produced; he has won more medals – especially gold ones – than just about anyone else. He’s a right fine fellow too, but right now, he is the fifth player who is getting a good few games and, like it or not, that has an effect on the team dynamic; it introduces an element of uncertainty in the other four.
• Make decisions about the playing order and, crucially, who is the alternate early on in the process – as early as you can.
• Recognise that there is a skill in being the fifth player. They are an important communication channel between the players and coaching staff. They need to be able to throw stones consistently and in the same style as the rest of the team, otherwise their stone-matching duties late of an evening will be waste of time. It is as important to have a good fifth player in many respects as it is to have good players in the team.
Our coaches tend to look at these things in four-year cycles; that is not their fault – it is a weakness in the current system. I want to make sure that decisions taken now are not just for the benefit of Scottish curling up to the next Olympics, but are also not – important this; HHYs please note – NOT to the detriment of the long-term future of the competitive game in our country. Why is David not skipping his own team in the meantime and providing competition for Tom, David Edwards and all the rest of them? Why was David Edwards and his team not invited to give Tom and his team a 'best-of-five' challenge to go out to Europe? What is wrong with competition?
“What’s the second experiment going on in the game at the moment?” I hear you ask. Picked teams, that’s what. Teams cobbled together by coaches without as much reference to the players as there should be.
The answer to this conundrum is relatively simple.
Don’t do it.
There are a couple of interesting experiments going on in Scottish curling this season, demonstrating if nothing else that the sport has moved on a bit since I last threw a stone in anger. Actually, I throw a lot of my stones in anger these days – largely because I am still recovering from the awfulness of the previous effort, if you catch my drift. Still and all, at least I can still enjoy the odd sojourn on the ice, which is more than can be said for those who chose rugby as their sport of choice. They just get angry at Tongans from the stands.
Back to my point. The first experiment is that of the 'five-man team'. Tom Brewster’s successful Scottish champions of the last couple of seasons have been joined this season by none other than David Murdoch. Views vary on the wisdom of such a move. The traditionalist view is that a curling team has four people and that to build up the all-important team dynamic, those four need to learn to win and, perhaps more importantly, to lose together as a team. Those of a cynical nature (not that there are any of those in curling) point to Tom and co’s early season form up to and including their recent foray at the European Championships in Karlstad, Sweden and, when they have picked themselves up off the floor, splutter indignantly, “I told you so.”
The modern approach here in Scotland seems to allow that the 'five-man-team' has a future. There are a number of outside influences at work and there is cross-fertilisation from other successful sports. This comes with the territory. The more money that comes into the top level of the sport, the more influence the paymasters will demand.
Be very careful though; it is not that this experiment has not been tried before. We could, for example, talk about Rhona Martin’s Olympic team from 2002. The original team was Rhona, Margaret Morton, Fiona Macdonald and Janice Rankin. They had already come fourth in the 1999 Chamonix European Championships before going on to win the Scottish Championship (Rhona’s breakthrough championship, by the way) in 2000; they went to the Glasgow World Championships with Debbie Knox as alternate. During the first half of season 2000-2001, Debbie and Margaret swapped in and out of the team event-by-event, until later on in about the November or so, when Margaret found herself as the permanent alternate and Debbie was installed as the third player.
Without the chance really to settle, they actually missed out on competing in the European championship that year. Later on, they lost their Scottish Championship title - it was won by Julia Ewart, Heather Byers, Nancy Murdoch and Lynn Cameron. The rules in play at the time meant that Julia and her team had to get all the way to the final of the World Championships before a play-off would have been triggered between them and Rhona. They missed out, failing at the semi-final stage and the sighs of relief from Team Martin nearly blew various houses down. It was therefore Rhona and her team who went out to the European Championships in Vierumäki in December 2001. Although there were a couple of tight games, their 2-5 record and sixth spot did not stoke the boilers of confidence.
Team Martin had settled down for the Vierumäki Europeans but to continue to swap players in and out of the team must have been disconcerting for those involved in Karlstad this season.
Rhona Martin went on with a completely settled team by this stage to the Olympics. Apart from a late round-robin hiccup, they carried all before them and ended up winning a fantastic Gold Medal for GB – the only team to do so, by the way, in the modern era.
Now, I know Tom well and he is a fine fellow. The last thing that he (or any of the other players or coaches for that matter) would ever do is dissemble. He is on record as taking the critics and the likes of me on full frontal. His post-championship interview on the Thursday at Karlstad is a direct rebuttal of what I am suggesting here. He was fully-supportive of all the technical changes and team rotation that we have seen. He blames the relatively poor Karlstad showing on illness and poor play. The evidence, anecdotal though it may be, might suggest otherwise.
Ulrika Bergman – remember her? She was Anette Norberg’s alternate player though that massive run of success that the Swedish ladies had in the noughties. Hardly got a game; never even a look-in! She was not a threat – which meant that the four in the team could concentrate on playing and bonding and that she could concentrate on doing all the important stuff that an alternate does at international championships – stone-matching, liaising between the bench and the team, and morale-boosting.
Ever heard of Terry Meek or Adam Enright? Neither had I. They were Kevin Martin’s alternates between 2008 and 2010. Chucked a couple of stones here and there (Meek is actually credited with a 100% statistical record for the stones he threw), but were they ever going to replace Ben Hebert, Marc Kennedy, John Morris or indeed Kevin Martin on a permanent basis? You may as well ask if David Cameron is about to join the World Socialist movement.
Look, I could go on but I think that those at the top of our game here in Scotland, and by extension, the UK, need to take valuable lessons from all of this.
• First of all, be very careful about introducing uncertainty to a team that is working. David Murdoch is one of the finest players that Scotland has ever produced; he has won more medals – especially gold ones – than just about anyone else. He’s a right fine fellow too, but right now, he is the fifth player who is getting a good few games and, like it or not, that has an effect on the team dynamic; it introduces an element of uncertainty in the other four.
• Make decisions about the playing order and, crucially, who is the alternate early on in the process – as early as you can.
• Recognise that there is a skill in being the fifth player. They are an important communication channel between the players and coaching staff. They need to be able to throw stones consistently and in the same style as the rest of the team, otherwise their stone-matching duties late of an evening will be waste of time. It is as important to have a good fifth player in many respects as it is to have good players in the team.
Our coaches tend to look at these things in four-year cycles; that is not their fault – it is a weakness in the current system. I want to make sure that decisions taken now are not just for the benefit of Scottish curling up to the next Olympics, but are also not – important this; HHYs please note – NOT to the detriment of the long-term future of the competitive game in our country. Why is David not skipping his own team in the meantime and providing competition for Tom, David Edwards and all the rest of them? Why was David Edwards and his team not invited to give Tom and his team a 'best-of-five' challenge to go out to Europe? What is wrong with competition?
“What’s the second experiment going on in the game at the moment?” I hear you ask. Picked teams, that’s what. Teams cobbled together by coaches without as much reference to the players as there should be.
The answer to this conundrum is relatively simple.
Don’t do it.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
The Scottish Women's Qualifiers
Copey writes:
Eight teams played in the Co-operative Funeralcare Women’s Qualifiers competition in the new rink at Dumfries on the 1st and 2nd December. Jennifer Martin, Lauren Baxter, Lorna Vevers, Kirsty Paterson, Kerry Barr, Gina Aitken, Maggie Wilson and Katie Murray skipped their teams and each team was looking for one of four places. The four qualifiers will join pre-qualified teams skipped by Gail Munro, Eve Muirhead, Hannah Fleming and Jackie Lockhart in the Scottish finals February 11-17 next year.
That’s the good news.
The bad news? Well, the eight teams were split into two groups of four. There was the possibility that a team could go out after only two games in the competition. Trust me. You can recover from two lost games in a league of eight teams – especially when there are four qualifiers out of eight. But you can’t recover after two lost games in a league of four.
Which is why Lorna Vevers, Kirsty Paterson, Maggie Wilson and Katie Murray and their teams will play no further part in the Co-operative Funeralcare Scottish Women’s Curling Championship, 2012 - 2013, described on the Royal Caledonian Curling Club’s website as, 'the highlight of Scotland’s competitive curling calendar with the best teams competing for the national title'.
Played two. Lost two. Out.
It’s not right. Please, HHYs – sort it out for next season.
Eight teams played in the Co-operative Funeralcare Women’s Qualifiers competition in the new rink at Dumfries on the 1st and 2nd December. Jennifer Martin, Lauren Baxter, Lorna Vevers, Kirsty Paterson, Kerry Barr, Gina Aitken, Maggie Wilson and Katie Murray skipped their teams and each team was looking for one of four places. The four qualifiers will join pre-qualified teams skipped by Gail Munro, Eve Muirhead, Hannah Fleming and Jackie Lockhart in the Scottish finals February 11-17 next year.
That’s the good news.
The bad news? Well, the eight teams were split into two groups of four. There was the possibility that a team could go out after only two games in the competition. Trust me. You can recover from two lost games in a league of eight teams – especially when there are four qualifiers out of eight. But you can’t recover after two lost games in a league of four.
Which is why Lorna Vevers, Kirsty Paterson, Maggie Wilson and Katie Murray and their teams will play no further part in the Co-operative Funeralcare Scottish Women’s Curling Championship, 2012 - 2013, described on the Royal Caledonian Curling Club’s website as, 'the highlight of Scotland’s competitive curling calendar with the best teams competing for the national title'.
Played two. Lost two. Out.
It’s not right. Please, HHYs – sort it out for next season.
Thursday, December 06, 2012
Seniors' Curling
See the seniors? It’s the new twenties – I kid you not!
I spent a fair bit of time behind the glass recently – looking at two great competitions, the Edinburgh International Men’s and Ladies Championships. Now, I will immediately admit to a bit of bias here, as I am the secretary of the organising committees for both the events, but actually, I am not talking about the organisation (splendid, obviously, though it undoubtedly was!), so much as the curling and the commitment of all the competitors who took part.
These were good, old-fashioned curling competitions – the way they used to be and here I will doff my cap in the general direction of 'my generation', to quote Pete Townshend of 'The Who' fame. No disrespect at all intended to the coaches and young curlers who now populate our sport at its elite level, but here were people, many of who have known each other for thirty years and more and who have competed hard against and with each other for that time as well, playing hard on the ice, then staying to enjoy the fun, chat, camaraderie and all of the rest of it at the end of the game. None of this debriefing stuff; no analysis by video; no coach’s input – just a good game of curling followed by some tales of derring-do.
Ah – but how was the curling, I hear you ask. It was just fine, thanks. Let me tell you about one stone. It was played by Kate Adams (mother of Kay and Vicky), judged by Catherine Dodds (mother of Stuart and Jennifer) and swept by Jill Florence (mother of David – OK, he’s not a curler but you’ll know him because every four years in our football-besotted land, he is suddenly famous for winning silver medals at the Olympic Games in the sport of kayaking) and Elspeth Johnston (mother of Lauren, who skipped the GB team to a bronze medal in the 2005 European Youth Olympics team, then played third in the gold medal winning team in the 2006 European Junior Challenge).
It was the final of the ladies competition (see me – see observation skills, by the way) and Kate was playing against Barbara Watt’s silver medal winners at last season’s world senior championships, Barbara herself (mother of Janice Rankin, Olympic gold medallist in Salt Lake City – oh, I could go on, but I will stop there!), Jean Hammond, Maggie Barry and Val Mahon. Barbara had the hammer. She was lying shot at about 10.00 behind the tee line. There was a stone out front, guarding the edge of the four foot and there was an Adams counter near the Watt stone behind the tee line, but lying second shot. Barbara’s first stone to come. The wags in the gallery (of whom there were a fair few, by the way) wondered whether she might be tempted to rip the guard; she had tried to earlier on in the end, as it happens, but Val Mahon’s stone had only succeeded in rolling to cover the four foot. Barbara decided, queen of the four-foot as she undoubtedly is, to draw top four and maybe tempt Kate into a fairly tricky hit and flop behind the guard. This would have left her with a fairly humdrum repeat draw to win the game and the competition. Her stone came agonisingly two feet too far, it front end straddling the tee line just off the centre of the one foot.
After deliberation, Kate decided to play the tiniest of taps at sweeping weight. She needed to move Barbara’s stone maybe six inches, so that she lay shot, but she did not want it to move any further for fear of giving Barbara a fairly run-of-the-mill hit for the game. She laid the stone and it tracked down the ice towards its destination. Brushes down, then up, then down again – always a good sign! Towards the end of its journey, as the weigh came off it, Jill and Elspeth leathered into it; it tapped the Watt counter back. Catherine looked anxiously at the stones as they lay, but the four of them had done just enough – and no more. It was the perfect team stone. Had this been the final of the world championships, I am telling you that the crowds would have leapt to their feet in admiration!
Barbara was suddenly faced with a nightmare shot; she needed to hit the Adams stone on the high side to force it over the top of her shot. Hopefully, both would spill, leaving her second stone (remember the one at 10.00?) as the game winner. Unfortunately for team Watt, her stone curled slightly over the face of the target stone and all she could do was watch as it drove Kate’s stone straight back onto her own, leaving Kate and her team the winners of the competition.
You had to feel sorry for Barbara and company, but at the same time admire the skills displayed by team Adams. It was as good a stone as the BTG mob are liable to see all season and the odds have already shortened in this watcher’s opinion on a repeat of that final come the Scottish Senior Championships in February.
In the men’s competition, another strong team, the reigning Scottish senior champions, no less, skipped by Keith Prentice, with Lockhart Steele, Robert Anderson (replacing Robin Aitken from last season) and Tommy Fleming in support, overcame the stuffy Kinross team skipped by David Clydesdale. David has made a habit in recent weeks of going four or five down in a game, only to roar back and win defiantly at the end! Not this time though – team Prentice used all their experience and talent to overcome the fightback and a big four in the seventh end secured things for them.
I have a word of advice to ice rinks out there, all of which seem intent on running junior or mainstream weekend competitions. Don’t stop doing the junior / mainstream stuff – it is really important that we have thriving age group and mainstream competitions and a meaningful circuit. But I’ll tell you what; think about running a 50s plus competition as well. Not only will they curl well, but they will put money behind your bar and give your club a real 'buzz' for the weekend.
I spent a fair bit of time behind the glass recently – looking at two great competitions, the Edinburgh International Men’s and Ladies Championships. Now, I will immediately admit to a bit of bias here, as I am the secretary of the organising committees for both the events, but actually, I am not talking about the organisation (splendid, obviously, though it undoubtedly was!), so much as the curling and the commitment of all the competitors who took part.
These were good, old-fashioned curling competitions – the way they used to be and here I will doff my cap in the general direction of 'my generation', to quote Pete Townshend of 'The Who' fame. No disrespect at all intended to the coaches and young curlers who now populate our sport at its elite level, but here were people, many of who have known each other for thirty years and more and who have competed hard against and with each other for that time as well, playing hard on the ice, then staying to enjoy the fun, chat, camaraderie and all of the rest of it at the end of the game. None of this debriefing stuff; no analysis by video; no coach’s input – just a good game of curling followed by some tales of derring-do.
Ah – but how was the curling, I hear you ask. It was just fine, thanks. Let me tell you about one stone. It was played by Kate Adams (mother of Kay and Vicky), judged by Catherine Dodds (mother of Stuart and Jennifer) and swept by Jill Florence (mother of David – OK, he’s not a curler but you’ll know him because every four years in our football-besotted land, he is suddenly famous for winning silver medals at the Olympic Games in the sport of kayaking) and Elspeth Johnston (mother of Lauren, who skipped the GB team to a bronze medal in the 2005 European Youth Olympics team, then played third in the gold medal winning team in the 2006 European Junior Challenge).
It was the final of the ladies competition (see me – see observation skills, by the way) and Kate was playing against Barbara Watt’s silver medal winners at last season’s world senior championships, Barbara herself (mother of Janice Rankin, Olympic gold medallist in Salt Lake City – oh, I could go on, but I will stop there!), Jean Hammond, Maggie Barry and Val Mahon. Barbara had the hammer. She was lying shot at about 10.00 behind the tee line. There was a stone out front, guarding the edge of the four foot and there was an Adams counter near the Watt stone behind the tee line, but lying second shot. Barbara’s first stone to come. The wags in the gallery (of whom there were a fair few, by the way) wondered whether she might be tempted to rip the guard; she had tried to earlier on in the end, as it happens, but Val Mahon’s stone had only succeeded in rolling to cover the four foot. Barbara decided, queen of the four-foot as she undoubtedly is, to draw top four and maybe tempt Kate into a fairly tricky hit and flop behind the guard. This would have left her with a fairly humdrum repeat draw to win the game and the competition. Her stone came agonisingly two feet too far, it front end straddling the tee line just off the centre of the one foot.
After deliberation, Kate decided to play the tiniest of taps at sweeping weight. She needed to move Barbara’s stone maybe six inches, so that she lay shot, but she did not want it to move any further for fear of giving Barbara a fairly run-of-the-mill hit for the game. She laid the stone and it tracked down the ice towards its destination. Brushes down, then up, then down again – always a good sign! Towards the end of its journey, as the weigh came off it, Jill and Elspeth leathered into it; it tapped the Watt counter back. Catherine looked anxiously at the stones as they lay, but the four of them had done just enough – and no more. It was the perfect team stone. Had this been the final of the world championships, I am telling you that the crowds would have leapt to their feet in admiration!
Barbara was suddenly faced with a nightmare shot; she needed to hit the Adams stone on the high side to force it over the top of her shot. Hopefully, both would spill, leaving her second stone (remember the one at 10.00?) as the game winner. Unfortunately for team Watt, her stone curled slightly over the face of the target stone and all she could do was watch as it drove Kate’s stone straight back onto her own, leaving Kate and her team the winners of the competition.
You had to feel sorry for Barbara and company, but at the same time admire the skills displayed by team Adams. It was as good a stone as the BTG mob are liable to see all season and the odds have already shortened in this watcher’s opinion on a repeat of that final come the Scottish Senior Championships in February.
In the men’s competition, another strong team, the reigning Scottish senior champions, no less, skipped by Keith Prentice, with Lockhart Steele, Robert Anderson (replacing Robin Aitken from last season) and Tommy Fleming in support, overcame the stuffy Kinross team skipped by David Clydesdale. David has made a habit in recent weeks of going four or five down in a game, only to roar back and win defiantly at the end! Not this time though – team Prentice used all their experience and talent to overcome the fightback and a big four in the seventh end secured things for them.
I have a word of advice to ice rinks out there, all of which seem intent on running junior or mainstream weekend competitions. Don’t stop doing the junior / mainstream stuff – it is really important that we have thriving age group and mainstream competitions and a meaningful circuit. But I’ll tell you what; think about running a 50s plus competition as well. Not only will they curl well, but they will put money behind your bar and give your club a real 'buzz' for the weekend.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
The Junior Men
Copey writes:
Sixteen junior men’s teams have entered the Scottish Junior Championships this year. Back to defend his title is Perth’s Kyle Smith. He retains Thomas Muirhead and Kyle Waddell from last season’s championship-winning team. Kerr Drummond has now aged out after a stellar junior career as a specialist lead. He has won the Scottish Junior Championship twice and was runner-up on two separate occasions as well. At world level, he made the podium on the two occasions he competed but the gold medal that he craved evaded him. This season, he is playing with Glen Muirhead, the skip that he beat in the first of his four Scottish finals. As an aside, Kerr’s older brother, Greg, played third in Glen’s team that year. Greg, as we know, has gone on to win two Scottish Championships and two World Silver Medals since his disappointment that day.
It is a big ask for Cammie Smith to fill those shoes, but that’s just what his big brother, Kyle, has asked him to do. This is a good-looking, strong team. They have that great advantage over the rest of the field – the “been there, done that” factor. When it comes to the business end of the competition on the Saturday and Sunday, that experience counts for a lot.
They have challenges though – perhaps the most obvious comes from Grant Hardie, Blair Fraser, Hammy McMillan and Ruairidh Greenwood, and here is a rub: the team will hardly have had a game together in the early part of the season. Grant and Hammy are playing in the Scottish Championship with Jay McWilliam and Billy Morton whilst Blair and Ruairidh are competing in a different team with Murray Young and Ian Copland. This is not good preparation for the Scottish Junior Championship, but they should still be good enough to get to the final stages of the Scottish junior championship on the Sunday.
Bruce Mouat and his team do not have that problem. Bruce, Duncan Menzies, Derrick Sloan and Angus Dowell are playing together all season. This will stand them in good stead. I expect them to be around come the play-off stages. Just this week, they reached the final of the EJCT competition in Thun, only to lose to Switzerland’s André Neuenschwander. They are doing well on the tour though and are the leading Scottish team, one point ahead of the Kyle Smith team and handily-placed at equal fifth.
What is pleasing about the Scottish junior men’s entry this year is the number of young teams that have entered the competition. I have already seen some of the names featuring in finals and the U17 slam series has helped develop a curling competitive edge in youngsters. The Scottish junior championships introduce the idea of ten-end games, fifth end breaks, coaches and all of the rest. I do hope that coaches are mindful of their duties to young and impressionable charges. Know when it is time to call your team off the ice and recognise that nobody tries to play bad shots. The one thing that youngsters do not need is an over-zealous coach shouting at them about percentages and missed out-turn hits!
The preliminary playdowns are in Perth, December 7-9, and the finals are in Aberdeen, January 23-27, 2013. Worth a trip!
Sixteen junior men’s teams have entered the Scottish Junior Championships this year. Back to defend his title is Perth’s Kyle Smith. He retains Thomas Muirhead and Kyle Waddell from last season’s championship-winning team. Kerr Drummond has now aged out after a stellar junior career as a specialist lead. He has won the Scottish Junior Championship twice and was runner-up on two separate occasions as well. At world level, he made the podium on the two occasions he competed but the gold medal that he craved evaded him. This season, he is playing with Glen Muirhead, the skip that he beat in the first of his four Scottish finals. As an aside, Kerr’s older brother, Greg, played third in Glen’s team that year. Greg, as we know, has gone on to win two Scottish Championships and two World Silver Medals since his disappointment that day.
It is a big ask for Cammie Smith to fill those shoes, but that’s just what his big brother, Kyle, has asked him to do. This is a good-looking, strong team. They have that great advantage over the rest of the field – the “been there, done that” factor. When it comes to the business end of the competition on the Saturday and Sunday, that experience counts for a lot.
They have challenges though – perhaps the most obvious comes from Grant Hardie, Blair Fraser, Hammy McMillan and Ruairidh Greenwood, and here is a rub: the team will hardly have had a game together in the early part of the season. Grant and Hammy are playing in the Scottish Championship with Jay McWilliam and Billy Morton whilst Blair and Ruairidh are competing in a different team with Murray Young and Ian Copland. This is not good preparation for the Scottish Junior Championship, but they should still be good enough to get to the final stages of the Scottish junior championship on the Sunday.
Bruce Mouat and his team do not have that problem. Bruce, Duncan Menzies, Derrick Sloan and Angus Dowell are playing together all season. This will stand them in good stead. I expect them to be around come the play-off stages. Just this week, they reached the final of the EJCT competition in Thun, only to lose to Switzerland’s André Neuenschwander. They are doing well on the tour though and are the leading Scottish team, one point ahead of the Kyle Smith team and handily-placed at equal fifth.
What is pleasing about the Scottish junior men’s entry this year is the number of young teams that have entered the competition. I have already seen some of the names featuring in finals and the U17 slam series has helped develop a curling competitive edge in youngsters. The Scottish junior championships introduce the idea of ten-end games, fifth end breaks, coaches and all of the rest. I do hope that coaches are mindful of their duties to young and impressionable charges. Know when it is time to call your team off the ice and recognise that nobody tries to play bad shots. The one thing that youngsters do not need is an over-zealous coach shouting at them about percentages and missed out-turn hits!
The preliminary playdowns are in Perth, December 7-9, and the finals are in Aberdeen, January 23-27, 2013. Worth a trip!
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