Draw Made for Ramada Perth Masters 2012

Pete Loudon, chairman of the organising committee, reports that there was a record number of entries for the 2012 Ramada Perth Masters, January 5-8, and the draw has now been made.

He says, "Following hard on the heels of the very successful World Junior Curling Championships held at Dewar's Centre in March 2011, forty teams, including twenty one from overseas, applied to take part in the Perth Masters 2012. The organising committee have narrowed them down to thirty-two and believe they have assembled one of the most exciting fields ever to be seen in Scotland. Combine this with an increased prize pot totalling £17,000, a first prize of £6,000, and the weekend of January 5-8, 2012, is shaping up to be a Curling Bonanza!"

A place in the draw has been kept for the winner of the Curl Atlantic Championship which will take place September 23-26 at the Tantramar Veterans Civic Centre in Sackville, New Brunswick. The goal of this event is 'to better prepare High Performance Atlantic Curling Teams for the national and international stage'. The prize for the winning men's team is to come to Perth. The best women's team will go to Berne for the 2012 Bernese Ladies Cup.

Other Canadian teams in the Perth Masters draw are skipped by Brad Gushue, Steve Laycock and Mike McEwen.

A feature of the Ramada Perth Masters this year will be the use of time clocks to count only 'thinking time', rather than the conventional way as used in major championships. This approach has been talked about for a while, so it is good to see it being trialled at Perth. The plan is to do this for the knockout stages only.

The Ramada Perth Masters website is here. The Masters is one of the events which make up the Curling Champions Tour.

Perth Masters 2012

Pete Loudon, the chairman of the organising committee, has news regarding the Perth Masters 2012. The 36th Perth Masters will take place at Dewars Centre, Perth, January, 5-8, 2012.

Ramada is again confirmed as the title sponsor with all participating teams staying at the City Mills Hotel, Perth. The Ramada Perth Masters committee continues to work hard to attract additional sponsors. There will be an increased total prize fund for the 2012 event, and details will be confirmed in due course.

All teams interested in entering should contact Linda Cowing at the rink - her contact details are here.

A number of international teams have already registered. Pete says, "From the teams that have already contacted us, it’s shaping up to be another world class event at Scotland’s premier curling venue. Keep up to date at www.perthmasters.com."

McEwen Wins Perth Masters

Congratulations to Mike McEwen, BJ Neufeld, Matt Wozniak and Denni Neufeld, from Winnipeg, who won the Ramada Perth Masters today, beating Duncan Fernie's team in the final.

Clare Carswell has the story here. Reading this it seems a big 'well done' is due too to Duncan, David Edwards, Richard Woods and Colin Campbell.

All the linescores are on the event website here.

I wasn't at Perth today (the reason will be on the blog later) but took these pics of the Canadians yesterday. Fun to watch. That's Mike McEwen above.

BJ Neufeld has a most unorthodox delivery, but it certainly gets results.

The hardworking front end, Denni Neufeld (on the left) and Matt Wozniak.

The best pic I took all weekend!

Photos © Skip Cottage

Getting to the Playoffs at Perth

Hammy McMillan took a five off Mike McEwen's Canadians in the first end of their B Road decider at the Ramada Perth Masters, and his team were on their way to a win which put them into tomorrow's quarterfinals. They join Niklas Edin and Logan Gray, the qualifiers from the A Road.

As I type this, Duncan Fernie is playing Ewan MacDonald, the winner goes through as the other B Qualifier.

For an overview of the B and C Roads, click on DRAW (not Results) in the menu bar of the event website, and then on B Road or C Road on the left of the page. Or simply click here or here.

As I left Perth tonight the four places from the C Road were to be decided. You can see for yourself who got through. You can follow tomorrow's progress on the event website. And read Clare's reports under the News Desk tab.

Me? I'm headed on my travels. Catch up with you later tomorrow.

Postscript: Added later. I see that Ewan MacDonald's team came through the B Road. The late night session in the C Road sees Murdoch v Ulsrud, Vuille v Fernie, Brewster v Pescia, and McEwen v Penny. What a feast for those snowed in at the Dewar's Centre with some of the favourites all on their last lives!

Then there were two

Logan Gray's team beat Yusuke Morozumi's Japanese visitors this afternoon at the Ramada Perth Masters to secure their place in Sunday's last eight.

Niklas Edin's Swedish side are also through to the quarterfinals, defeating Ewan MacDonald's team 4-2.

The B and C Roads continue. You can find all the results on the website here.

Let me introduce you to Claire Carswell. That's her in my photo below. She blogged from the event last year, and is back again. You can read her take on things here.

Clare is a real journalist! She has a degree in multimedia journalism from Glasgow Caledonian University and now works for an Edinburgh based news agency. Her interest spans minority team sports in general, and she has even been on the ice herself since becoming involved at the Perth Masters last year.

Clare's pic is © Skip Cottage

More from Perth

It is always difficult in a triple knockout knowing who to watch. After all, it doesn't really matter whether you take the short road - by winning your first four games - or the long scenic route via the C Road, the objective is simply to qualify for Sunday's knockout stages. One thing is certain though, in an event like the Ramada Perth Masters, there's always a lot of good curling on view, whether it's in A, B, or C.

By late afternoon today, eight teams that had been undefeated in A were reduced to four. Japan's Yusuke Morozumi eked out a 4-3 win over Sandy Reid to stay without a loss.

Team Morozumi. Definite caption material. How about, "Just look at the time. Back home the bus would have been here by now!"

Logan Gray's team added one to their CVs by beating David Murdoch to continue their passage along the A Road.

I hear so many suggestions as to what the numbers mean - few if any are printable here!

Ewan MacDonald beat Neil Joss to stay in A too, as did Niklas Edin who beat Duncan Fernie.

You can follow all the scores on the official website here. And Kay Adams has been blogging. Read her reports here. There's a gallery of photos here.

Claudio Pescia's team is working away in the B Road.

As is Canada's Mike McEwen, despatched there by Neil Joss yesterday.

The Canadian skip played a great shot - a takeout past a guard with no room for error, the jam looking ominous - to count two to win in his last end of his game against Daniel Neuner. Great stuff to watch!

One lane has been out of action for much of today, and as I left the rink tonight the staff were working hard to find the source of the leak! Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Pics © Skip Cottage

Colourful Masters

I looked in at the Ramada Perth Masters today, and liked what I saw! That's Jamie Dick giving ice for his skip John Hamilton, with Thomas Ulsrud and Torger Nergåard behind. It was a battle between Wackpants (Hamilton) and Loudmouth (Norway). A win for Wack on this occasion, and the European Champions are in the C Road.

More to come.......

All of the results are on the website here.

Photo © Skip Cottage

Busy weekend in prospect

It's quite a weekend in prospect! Giving age its due, I should begin by noting that the country's senior men's teams are playing off at Forfar (twelve teams) and at Greenacres (fifteen teams) to find the qualifiers for the Scottish Senior Championships, to be held at the Lanarkshire Ice Rink, Hamilton, February 9-13.

Keith Prentice, Lockhart Steel, Robin Aitken and Tommy Fleming are the defending champions. Can they make it three in a row? Team Prentice plays at Greenacres.

The seventeen women's teams are all straight through to the finals. You can access the draws and results from this page.

Junior clubs will be battling it out at Ayr in Divisions 1 and Division 2 of the Royal Club's Junior Challenge. Each junior club is represented by two teams. This is the first year of the new format. After this weekend's round robin two squads will be relegated from Division 1, and two promoted from Division 2. The bottom two clubs in Division 2 will also be relegated to Division 3 which plays later in the season. Follow what happens here.

Which takes us to the Ramada Perth Masters, and the reason that Thomas Ulsrud (above) is the featured photo of the post. Games begin today, Thursday, with thirty-two teams playing in a triple knockout in this Curling Champions Tour event. Ulsrud won the Le Gruyere European Curling Championship in Champery last month and the Norwegians open against Andy Cameron. The event website is here.

The photo of Thomas Ulsrud is © Skip Cottage and was taken at the recent Le Gruyere European Curling Championships in Champery.

At the top of the game

David Murdoch's Team GB competed in the Swiss Chalet National in Guelph, Ontario, this weekend. They won three, lost two in their section and beat Kerry Burtnyk in a tiebreaker to qualify for the playoffs, then losing 5-3 to Kevin Koe in the quarterfinals. All the results are here.

In Berne, Eve Muirhead's Team GB reached the quarterfinals of the International Berne Ladies Championship and beat Cheryl Bernard's side, the Canadian Olympic reps, 8-3! Good work girls! That brought them up against the other Canadians, skipped by Jennifer Jones, and I see from the results here they lost 2-3. Jones went on to win the event, Team GB winning the 3rd-4th playoff against Austria's Jacqueline Greiner.

At the Ramada Perth Masters, Tom Brewster, Duncan Fernie, Ron Brewster and David Edwards beat Niklas Edin's Swedes, the European Champions, 5-3, in the final. Find the results here. The event had its own blogger this year in Claire Carswell, a journalism student at Strathclyde, see here. The winners' pic is here.

And in the European Junior Challenge in Prague, the Finnish junior men won their place in the World Junior Championship. So too did the German junior women, although you have to have a thought for the Danish girls who were beaten in the final, at an extra end, having gone nine games without loss in the round robin! The results are here, and the site has lots of photos and videos.

David Murdoch's pic is a Capital One photo by Anil Mungal.

Chinese at Perth

The Chinese Olympic men's curling squad are now settled in the Ramada City Mills Hotel for the next ten days or so, as they are going to use the Dewar's Centre as a base prior to setting off for Vancouver. They played a four end game against the GB Ladies Olympic team yesterday.

In Jonny Wilson's pic above, Eve Muirhead is doing her bit to further international understanding and friendship! The Ramada Perth Masters begins this evening.

Ramada Perth Masters

Put aside thoughts of outside curling and the possibility of a Grand Match, top class curling is on the agenda this weekend. At the Dewar's Rinks in Perth, the Ramada Perth Masters, the second of the Curling Champions Tour events to be held in Scotland this season, goes ahead with the three medallists from the recent Le Gruyere European Curling Championships in Aberdeen in action, alongside the Danish, Japanese and Chinese Olympic squads. This is a thirty-two team triple knockout event, with eight teams qualifying for Sunday's quarterfinals.

Until recently, Niklas Edin (above) and his Swedish rink were just a young but talented combination from Karlstad. But now they are the European Champions! Edin's team are due to meet Graham Shaw's local side in the first round on Thursday at 16.45.

The Chinese Olympic squad is not well known. Bill Duncan notes, “They are going to base themselves in the Fair City for a few days before and after the Perth Masters, to complete their base training before travelling to Canada for their final preparations." Jamie Dick's team get the honour of welcoming Rui Liu and his team to Scottish ice on Thursday at 20.30.

Ramada Perth Masters results will be here, and some games will be webcast. I am unfortunately not able to be in Perth, so I'm looking forward to experiencing watching from a distance!

David Murdoch's GB Olympic team is not in the lineup at Perth. They are taking part in the National, in Guelph, Ontario. The Swiss Chalet National is one of the four men's majors in the World Curling Tour season. The draw is here. Team Murdoch's first game is tonight (Wednesday) against Kerry Burnyk.

Eve Muirhead's GB team though is in the draw for the Bernese Ladies Cup in Switzerland which begins on Friday. This Curling Champions Tour event is also a thirty-two team triple knockout. Three other Scottish teams are in the lineup, skipped by Gillian Howard, Anna Sloan and Sarah Reid. The results should be here.

Pic of Niklas is by Bob

The best on the ice

As in any sport, curling fans enjoy watching 'the best' in action. Of course these days, real curling fans are very much in the minority in this country. Gone are the days when curlers in Scotland would make a big effort to go along to a rink to watch a game of curling. Life has changed. People have more commitments, lead busier lives, and perhaps have less disposable income to spend on travelling to and watching curling events. It's not 1985, when the Kelvin Hall was filled for every draw of the Silver Broom. The majority of the 14,000 or so registered curlers are more concerned nowadays with enjoying their regular club games, and pay only a passing interest in what is happening at the elite level.

It is also true that Scotland is not served particularly well with opportunities to see the best players live. David Murdoch's World Champions travel the world these days to get top competition - although looking at the results from the Grey Power World Cup in Ontario this weekend (five losses and one win), this is not always the most enjoyable experience for them!

We will get the opportunity to see the Murdoch team, our Olympic representatives, at the Edinburgh International next month. The draw for that Curling Champions Tour event has been made and is just about to go online. Look for it here.

But the BIG event coming up is of course the Le Gruyere European Championships. It's in Scotland this time, in Aberdeen, December 4-12. Single draw tickets can now be reserved, see here. Eve Muirhead and her GB team, who are our Olympic representatives on the women's side, will be representing Scotland at Aberdeen. Scotland's men are the Murdoch side.

So, will you get to Aberdeen to support our teams and enjoy the best of curling in Europe? If I'm honest, Scottish fans have not had the best record in recent years in supporting the big events, which of course damages our standing among the top curling nations in the eyes of the rest of the world. It will be disappointing, particularly to the hardworking committee and volunteers, and those who have worked to bring the championships to Aberdeen, if few Scottish curlers make the effort to support the European Championships, and the stands remain empty.

So, get out your diaries and make plans to visit Aberdeen, if not for the whole event, then for at least some days in December. Get together with friends and fellow club members. Hire a bus, and make it a fun day out!

The top ten men's teams and the top ten women's teams will be playing in the Linx Arena, right on the beachfront, but there will undoubtedly be some good curling at Curl Aberdeen in the B Divisions. And yes, let's be quite open about it, there will be a number of colourful, attractive teams on the ice there. (I'm torn. Which tee shirt will I wear? My recently acquired Latvian one, or the well worn Hungarian one? But I digress.)

Post the Europeans, there is a great lineup for the Ramada Perth Masters, January 7-10, the second Curling Champions Tour event in Scotland. The draw has been made and can be found here. Six Olympic teams are in the mix! The Murdoch team won't be at this one though, having been invited to play in the Casino Rama Skins event in Ontario. (Incidentally, this latter is an X-rated, adults only affair. Because it's in a casino, under Canadian law you can't go to see the event unless you are 19 years of age or older. Who said curling was an inclusive sport?)

On the women's side though, the competition of the year, just prior to the Olympics, sees the best in the world at the Glynhill Ladies International. No excuses (or age limits) here - a central venue, easy access, free entry, opportunity to meet and talk to the curlers. Ask yourself, "Am I a curling fan?" If you are not, then you might well become one if you head for Braehead, January 15-17!