Allan and William Lyburn from Stranraer won the Scottish Junior Championship in 1992. Shortly after that the Lyburn family emigrated to Canada. Over the years since, the two brothers have been competing on the Canadian curling circuit. Last month Allan, playing third to Rob Fowler from Brandon, beat the likes of Jeff Stoughton and Mike McEwan to win the Safeway Manitoba Provincials. William, skipping his own rink, made the semifinals after winning all of his round robin games and was eliminated by Rob Fowler with Allan playing third. The Fowler team then recruited William as their alternate for the Tim Horton's Brier.
As things stand today, Manitoba is in the Page 1-2 game. Were they to win the Canadian title, then there would be three teams for us to support at the Worlds in Basel next month. Scotland, of course, New Zealand, skipped by Pete de Boer with Kenny Thomson in the team, and Canada. That would be fun.
This video has the Lyburn story, and is a good clip to watch, as is this game. There's a story about the Lyburns by Larry Wood in Issue 2 the Tankard Times, which is available as a download from here.
Thanks to Drew Lyburn for suggesting the links.
Now to Hungary.
Lee McLeary and Judith McFarlane won the Scottish Mixed Doubles Championship, see here, and will represent Scotland at the World Mixed Doubles in Erzurum, next month. They have taken the opportunity to get in some practice against some of the teams that they will be up against then, by playing in the Fifth Hungarian Mixed Doubles Curling Cup this weekend (details here).There's some photos of the Hungarian two-sheeter here, from when England's John Sharp and Jane Clark competed in the same competition.
