Well done Eve

It's hard to believe that so much is happening so early in the season! Congratulations to Eve Muirhead, Jackie Lockhart, Kelly Wood, Lorna Vevers, Karen Addison and their coach Nancy Murdoch who won their first foray abroad this season as Team GB. In Oakville, Ontario, they went undefeated in seven games to win the OCT Championships. They won through their semifinal after an extra end, then had a whitewash in the final which only went four ends. The results are all here.

L-R: Kelly Wood, Eve Muirhead, Lorna Vevers. The photo is by Anil Mungal, courtesy of The Curling News blog, whose story is here. I rather liked the headline, 'Scottish Brits Win Ontario Tour title'. Could 'Scottish Brits' catch on, I wonder?

David Murdoch's GB Men won all four of their section games and their quarterfinal against Ralph Stockli but lost out in the semifinals of the Baden Masters to the eventual winners, Brad Gushue's Canadian side. Gushue then beat Thomas Ulsrud of Norway in the final of this first Curling Champions Tour event of the new season. Details are all on the event website here, and story here. And The Curling News blog has the story with pics here.

Our wheelchair curlers were in Taarnby, Denmark. Jim Sellar played lead and skip, Angie Malone threw second stones, Tom Killin third, and Gregor Ewan played the last stones. They won their first three games against Finland, the Czech Republic and Denmark, before losing to Russia, the tournament winners. They lost the third place playoff to Sweden, so finished fourth in the tournament. More details here.

I had a most enjoyable evening on Saturday at Murrayfield where the organisers of the Edinburgh International Championships held a fundraising dinner, details here.

Today I was at Greenacres where the Irish curlers were having a coaching day for all abilities, and three of the RCCC National Academy teams were also engaged in on-ice training. I'll have some photos of the latter here on Monday.

Peter Wilson (on right) has retired from competition himself now, but expect to see him in a coaching role this season.

Pic © Skip Cottage

Curling Champions Tour gets underway

The Curling Champions Tour, the series of European events that used to be called the World Curling Tour-Europe, gets underway this weekend with the Baden Masters. This is a twenty team event, played in four sections, leading to quarterfinals. Team GB, skipped by David Murdoch, is in the draw.

The Champions Tour's website above has had a makeover. Its headline news today notes that Scotland's Leslie Ingram-Brown has been asked by the tour organisers to look at the rules for their events to try and produce a unified code of rules for all competitions. Leslie has been asked to chair a committee consisting of Armin Harder, the Executive Director of the CCT, and the two player representatives, David Murdoch and Karolina Pilarova.

Leslie says, "At the present time my work will be fact finding during the current season. I hope to meet with those responsible for the various competitions to discuss the matter with them and seek their views." He emphasises that his role is not to implement any new regulations, but simply to try to get all competitions to have the same playing rules. His title will be CCT Rules Commissioner.

The Baden Masters website, for results, is here. The draw includes three top Canadian teams skipped by Randy Ferbey, Brad Gushue and Mark Dacey. The team list is here.

Eve Muirhead's squad is also in action this weekend. They are competing in the OCT Championships in Oakville, Ontario, an event in the Ontario Curling Tour. Twenty teams play in four sections. Their first game is against Lynne Middaugh of Orillia later today. Follow the results here.