'Drama in Champery'

Tom Brewster, Greg Drummond, Scott Andrews and Michael Goodfellow made it to the final of the Portes du Soleil Champery Masters.

Logan Gray's team went out in the quarterfinals. David Edwards' side lost out in a playoff for the quarters, as did David Murdoch, despite a triple takeout with his last stone on the eighth to count three and force an extra end in his game against Pascal Hess. Shot of the year so far, in my book.

I really enjoyed the coverage of the event by Laola1.tv. Brian Gray had the role of lead commentator for most of the games I watched, joined by ice tech Mark Callan, Italian coach Dan Rafael, and David Edwards for different games. All very entertaining in different ways.

The Brewster team were going well all weekend, Tom himself playing some cracking shots, particularly against Jan Hauser in the quarterfinal. Having got past Hess in the semi, Team Brewster were in the final against Peter De Cruz's side. This young team, in which Benoit Schwarz plays the last stone, contested the final of the World Juniors at Perth last season and it was good to be able to watch them again. Trying to blank the seventh, with scores tied, Tom failed to run away and went into the last one up, without. In the eighth, it looked for a long time as if the Scots were in deep trouble, but a Brewster triple takeout ensured that the Swiss could only count a single and so it was in to an extra end.

Exciting to watch! The game came down to the final stone, Tom just an inch too heavy with his draw to the one foot. The young team from Geneva were the winners of the first ever Champery Masters.

All the results from the competition are here. The Curling Champions Tour website is here.

Top: Screenshot of Tom Brewster from the live Laola1.tv feed of the semifinal.

Return to Champery

There is a new competition in the Curling Champions Tour this season, the Portes du Soleil Champery Masters, which begins today (Thursday). Thirty men's teams will compete in six sections in the Palladium de Champery, which was the venue for the most recent Le Gruyere European Championship.

Scotland is well represented with Logan Gray, David Murdoch, Tom Brewster and David Edwards all taking their teams to this competition. Play begins this evening, with Laola1.tv set to provide webcasts of selected games. The draw is here, and the results should be found here.

While some of Scotland's junior teams will be competing at Murrayfield this weekend in the Gogar Salver and the Dunvegan Trophy, see here, others are venturing further afield. Bruce Mouat and Kyle Smith are at the Oslo Junior Men's competition, and Jennifer Dodds and Jennifer Martin compete in the Junior Women's competition which runs alongside the junior men's event. These four teams are all in the Royal Club Academy programmes, see here. Hannah Fleming's team, a Performance Squad team which won the Forfar leg of the Women's Tour on Sunday, is also in Oslo this weekend. Information on the two Oslo events can be found here and here. Oslo is the second venue for the European Junior Curling Tour. Scotland was not represented in the first which was held in Taarnby back in August.

Attention is back on Forfar Indoor Sports this weekend with the inaugural National Super League finals. That sounds as if it will be a lot of fun! The rink's website is here to find what happens.