Fenton's Here I Come

I've visited every curling rink in Scotland but, to my embarrassment, I have never set foot in England's sole dedicated curling facility, Fenton's Rink in Kent.

That will be rectified this weekend as I plan to visit the rink when the Four Nations is on. I'll have my camera with me, of course.

It's not that I haven't followed our sport south of the border. The Scottish Curler featured a monthly column from John Brown in the seven years when I was Editor, and John continues to keep us up to date on what's happening in Toothy Tales. Recently he posted extensively from Prague at the European Junior Challenge. I was interested in how the English juniors performed. I met them when they played at the Lockerbie Junior event in December.

Minnie Garnier has sent me the photo below of some of the English youngsters, on their return from competing in Prague. The girls came sixth and the boys ninth, under the guidance of their coaches John Brown and Greg Dunn. They were sponsored by Kent Reliance Building Society.

The teams were: Girls - Anna Fowler (skip - not in photo as she was already back at university), Hetty Garnier, Naomi Robinson, Lauren Pearce and Angharad Ward. Boys - Ben Fowler (skip), Harry Mallowes, Ben Alexander (not in photo as back at uni), Oliver Kendall and Matt Spicer. Photo courtesy of Minnie Garnier.

A rink is only as healthy as its juniors, as I've said before, so every success to the growth of junior curling at Fenton's.

Now, I know what your next question will be. And no, I've not yet visited the Deeside Leisure Centre in Queensferry, Wales. However, I did find this recent YouTube footage here, which gives an idea of what it is like.

What else is there to follow this weekend? The second weekend of the Bruadar Scottish Men's Qualifiers is on in Perth. But only for Section A. Section B is on NEXT weekend. The draw, the results and the standings can be found here.

The Glynhill Ladies' International is at Braehead. Chistine and Hugh Stewart are the 'guest bloggers' for this. The event website is here.

Team North America with the Continental Cup. Photo credit: CCA/Michael Burns. Lots more photos here.

I haven't mentioned on the blog that Team World got completely flattened by North America in last weekend's Continental Cup. I did try to watch some of this from Aberdeen, but had no success in getting the webcast to work either with Firefox or with Safari on my Mac. Sandy Morton on Millport watched some of it and says it became embarrassing, so maybe it is as well that I couldn't connect. (Athough I would value some tech input into why I was unable to.)

Here are a couple of links which might give you a flavour. I enjoyed reading the Curling Librarian's behind-the-scenes thoughts and photos from the event here.

And World Curling TV now has its own YouTube channel. See here for an example, or click on the image below.

But do explore all the WCTV YouTube offerings (see here). Lots of archive footage is going up. I expect I'll be spending some time looking at it all in the weeks ahead!

Speaking of David Murdoch, his team (just who will no doubt become clear) is competing in the Casino Rama Skins event in Ontario. This is the big money competition which his team won last year. Murdoch v world champion Kevin Koe is one semifinal on Saturday. The battle of the sexes is the other, matching Kevin Martin against Cheryl Bernard, see here.

Thursday Opinion, and a PS from Riga

I'm on record with my opinions of the Continental Cup, the Canada v Rest of the World event, something along the lines of golf's Ryder Cup. As a promotional vehicle for the sport, it has done nothing to excite me. I once called it a charade - the result just depended, for the most part, on the last skins events and it seemed to be simply a revenue source, and a bit of fun, for the teams selected to play in it.

The problem, as I saw it, was that I didn't see it. The games could not be watched on television in the UK, or even on the computer. What was the point of the world governing body, the World Curling Federation, putting good money into this farce, when it was doing nothing to promote curling in this country or in Europe? Sure, the curlers in the teams enjoyed it, on and off the ice. Good for them. And so did the spectators who were able to get to the arena to see the games. They were the lucky ones.

It was marketed as an event to promote our sport, and it did not do that. It even soured me to the whole concept, because, despite the hype, there was no way for ME to watch and appreciate some of the best curlers and curling on show. For example, I love mixed doubles. Great idea to have this in the Con Cup, to showcase this discipline, gain support for the future perhaps in the Olympics and certainly in the Youth Olympics. But to hold it all 'in camera', without cameras as far as Europe was concerned, was a poor show. Waste of time, money, and effort, was my opinion.

I thought the WCF high heid yins had come round to this way of thinking too, as it was rumoured that the event was finished. There was to be no Con Cup during the Olympic year in any case, and it was unlikely to be going ahead next season for lack of funding and sponsorship.

All that has now changed. The announcement today, which you can read in its entirety on the WCF website here, says that the Con Cup will be back for another two, and perhaps three, years, thanks to the input of a major sponsor, the World Financial Group.

The first WFG Continental Cup, presented by Monsanto, will be staged in January of 2011. That's a different time in the season from past events, which were contested in late November or early December. Sites and exact dates have not yet been confirmed for the 2011 to 2013 events.

I welcome a new sponsor into curling. I wish the event every success. I mean it. I just hope the World Curling Federation and its partner in all this, the Canadian Curling Association, realise there's a whole curling world out there in Europe and in Asia which needs development. It should not just be a Canadian plaything. Perhaps Canadian curling does need promoted, but I think Canada's needs in this respect are minor compared with the rest of the world. Please let curlers and fans in other countries see what the Continental Cup is all about, and then I might just be more sympathetic to the whole idea.

PS. The Reform CC had a great day's sightseeing in and around Riga today. Here they all are, washed up on a beach at Jurmala. If they look cold, you are probably right, it was Baltic! The credit should go to our guide Olga (sixth from left in the front row, whose website is here), who was first class and put on a fabulous day which involved a walking tour of the old city, a coach ride, a beach walk, Latvian food in a modern shopping mall, and a boat trip on the river!

Pic © Skip Cottage. Click on the pic to open a larger size image.