Having been at the past couple of European Championships in person, I'm sad that this year I'll be watching what happens in Moscow from my living room, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, however frustrating that might be. Eve, Anna, Vicki and Claire were up first against Linn Githmark's Norwegians. The game was scheduled on the Eurosport Player. I duly paid my subscription, and settled down to watch. Did I say living room? Actually, as Moscow is four hours ahead of Skip Cottage, it was only 08.00 when the game started, and my bed was cosy and warm. Just the conditions to watch some good curling! No, let's get up and cheer from in front of the fire.In many ways I would have been better not watching. I'm sure the whole experience put up my blood pressure. Not because of the standard of play, which was a bit iffy at times, but the watching experience was poor, compared with recent dallyings with Laola1 and Mitchnet from the Edinburgh International. I lost count of the number of times the feed faltered, had to rebuffer, or froze completely.
Imagine the situation. We're in the eighth end. Scotland is two behind. There are four Norwegian stones in the house as Eve goes to play her last.
The webcast freezes!
**** ******* **************! (Expletives deleted)
It was midway through the next end before things were back running again and I was able to find out that the Scottish skip HAD made the draw.
Never did see the final end. Who won? I sought to rely on the tried and tested method of refreshing the linescores here. CurlIT was having problems too. A message on their website read, "We have a connection issue - updates will be slow, no shot by shot, sorry."
Should I just go away, read a book, and wait for Leslie Ingram-Brown's report to drop into my email, or for Mike Haggerty's roundup to appear on the Royal Club website.
Suddenly, refreshing the linscore brought news. The Scots had stolen a three in the last end for the win! Well done girls. Consolations to Linn and her team - they will be disappointed, having been in the driving seat for most of the game.
Was confirmation of the result needed? Facebook was already buzzing, and within minutes Scottish alternate Kay Adams had tweeted a photo from the coaches' bench. @kaynadams if you are a social networker and want to follow Kay!
It's all too much for an oldie like me. I think I need to go back to bed!
Top photo is a screenshot from the webcast when it was working!
