It's eyes on the Dewar's Centre in Perth this Saturday and Sunday where eight teams are vying for the remaining six places in the Columba Cream Scottish Ladies Championship. Only two teams, skipped by Eve Muirhead and Gail Munro, are already in the final eight for the first round proper of the competition, at Curl Aberdeen, November 19-22.Of the eight teams in the prequalifying competition this weekend, four are still juniors. The pre-qualifier will be played in two sections with the top three teams in each section going forward. I can envisage playoffs galore on Sunday!
Anna Sloan (pictured above), Lauren Gray, Gillian Howard and Judith McFarlane skip their teams in Section A, and Jennifer Dodds, Hannah Fleming, Claire Milne and Sarah Reid are in Section B. Hard to say who will be the odd ones out, so I'm not even going to begin to speculate!
First games are at 09.30 on Saturday. It's the beginning of the road to the world championships. The Ford World Women's Curling Championship will be held in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada, March 20-28, 2010. Yes, there will be life after the Olympics!
Elsewhere in the curling world, Eve Muirhead's Team GB are in the draw for the 2009 Colonial Square Ladies Classic in Saskatoon. This is a thirty-two team triple knockout. The results will be here. The GB side is up against Robyn Silvernagle's Saskatchewan team in their first match tomorrow (Friday, November 30).
David Murdoch and the men's Team GB are in Brooks, Alberta, for the 2009 Cactus Pheasant Classic, which gets underway today. The twenty-four team lineup contains the top Canadian sides, see here. The results should be here.
Photo of Anna Sloan practising at Lockerbie recently is © Skip Cottage.
