Pacific-Asia Curling Championships

Now, I have to make an apology. Particularly to Peter de Boer's mum. You see, when I posted on Friday (here) that the Pacific-Asia Curling Championships were about to get underway in China last Saturday, I said we would be looking out for the fortunes of New Zealand as Scottish expat Kenny Thomson was on the team. I had thought that Pete was going to be involved, but the team list I downloaded from the WCF link had no mention of him.

I was rushing to get on my way to Aberdeen, so made a mental note to follow this up ... and promptly forgot about it until my return home yesterday afternoon when I looked to see how the Championships were progressing. By this time, an updated team list was available for download and, sure enough, there's Pete as the New Zealand skip, with Sean Becker as third, Scott Becker as second, Kenny Thomson at lead and Phil Dowling as alternate. Peter Becker is the coach.

How are they doing? It's been a case of win some, lose some. All the results are linked to from this page. And there's a good summary of all the results on the New Zealand Curling Association website here. The teams play a double round robin, and the top four go to playoffs. Two countries qualify for the World Championship in Basel.

There are some action shots in a gallery on the Chinese Curling Association's website, see here. That's where the top photo comes from. There's also webcast footage from the Nanjing Olympic Center here. I haven't yet found a photo of Pete or Kenny in action - let me know if you do!

Thanks to blogally Morag Wellman for passing on the info that Pete's mum is very proud that her son is representing New Zealand! I'm sure all who know Pete and Kenny concur with this sentiment.

Top photo is of the Chinese women's team (in their game against the New Zealand women) from the gallery on this page. I'm sorry I do not have the photographer's name.

Scottish expat to play for New Zealand

I was tickled to read the news this morning that a friend and well kent former Greenacres curler Kenny Thomson, now living in Auckland, has been selected as one of the five man squad to represent New Zealand at the Pacific Curling Championships in South Korea in November.

The NZ selections for the 2010-11 season were confirmed at a special meeting of the NZ Curling Association's Executive on July 16, see here. The other members of the national men's team are Sean Becker, Warren Kearney, Kris Miller and Warren Dobson.

Kenny is certainly one of the sport's 'characters'! More importantly he is a member of my own club, Reform CC, and I'm sure all the members will be cheering the news today.

The pic of Kenny, wearing his Reform CC fleece, was taken on a Reform Touring Club expedition to Prague a couple of years back. © Skip Cottage.