Curlwatching this weekend

There's lots of curling to keep your eyes on this weekend. Sarah Reid (above) takes her team of Kerry Barr, Kay Adams and Barbara McFarlane to the Curling Champions Tour event in Wetzikon this weekend. Kay, in her role as the Royal Club's Web Content Officer, has posted the details of where to find all the results from Switzerland in her weekend preview here. Eve Muirhead and Anna Sloan also have teams at the ZO International.

Kay's weekend preview also has detail of the third leg of the CCT Junior Tour in Thun, where Hannah Fleming, John Penny and Kyle Smith are the Scots teams in action, and of the Under-17 Slam at Greenacres for the Baljaffray trophy.

I'll be at Murrayfield with my camera this weekend for the Edinburgh International Championship, and blogging here.

In the meantime, if you want a little nostalgia, I've posted a clip from the 1986 Edinburgh International here. Just as they are this weekend, Hammy McMillan and David Smith were together twenty-four years ago, although David was the skip back then. Bob Martin's English side had difficulty buying a shot in this game! Commentary is from Brian Alderman and Gordon Muirhead. I have to apologise for the small size of the YouTube clip. What is different this time is that the ripped footage comes, not indirectly from an original VHS tape, but from a DVD which had already been converted professionally from a tape. I suspect that the resolution on this DVD is different from that on the DVDs I make myself. Anyway, thanks to Ken Horton for lending me this, and other DVDs from his own collection. Note that you can expand the YouTube clip using the button on the bottom right of the screen.

Sarah's photo is from last weekend in Aberdeen and is © Skip Cottage

World Championship alternates

Sarah Reid, above, will join Eve Muirhead, Kelly Wood, Lorna Vevers and Annie Laird as Scotland's fifth player for the World Women’s Curling Championship in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, March 20-28. Jackie Lockhart dislocated her knee prior to the Columba Cream final on Sunday, and Annie Laird was brought into the team then. Sarah skipped her own team in the last four of the Scottish, losing in the semifinal.

Warwick Smith, David Smith, Craig Wilson and Ross Hepburn will have David Murdoch (below) sitting on the bench as their fifth player at the World Men’s Curling Championship in Cortina D'Ampezzo, April 3-11. The reigning world champion skip lost out in the semifinal of the Bruadar Scottish Championship on Saturday.

Pics of Sarah and David are © Skip Cottage and were taken at Perth on Saturday last.

Lanarkshire Mini Tour

Paul Stevenson and his team of Dillan Perras, Fraser Watt and Tim Stevenson won the Lanarkshire Mini Tour. They beat Jay McWilliam, Ian Copland, Struan Wood and Billy Morton after an extra end in the final.

Sixteen teams contested the event in four sections. The Stevenson side beat Alan Hannah in the quarters and Scott Hamilton in the semifinal. McWilliam had come through against Hamilton McMillan and Hugh Thompson yesterday. The linescores and the other results are here.

L-R above: Tim Stevenson, Fraser Watt, Dillan Perras, Paul Stevenson with RCCC Vice-president Robbie Scott who presented the prizes.

Paul Stevenson in the final.

The skip joins Tim Stevenson and Dillan Perras in sweeping Fraser Watt's stone.

Ian Copland, Jay McWilliam, Billy Morton and Struan Wood discuss options during the sixth end. One down in the last end, Jay's last takeout curled just a fraction too far, or his stone would have rolled to lie second shot, and the two would have given the youngsters the game. As it was, the single just put the game into an extra end where Paul did not need his last stone.

Sarah Reid (above) with Kerry Barr, Barbara McFarlane and Laura Kirkpatrick head the table at the halfway stage of the women's mini tour which is being run as a double round robin over two weekends.

The Reid team were undefeated until running up against Kay Adams, who had taken over the skip's role in Gillian Howard's team, for yesterday's final game. Kay with Gillian, Linsey Spence and Sarah Macintyre stole a single in an extra end. That's Kay calling line in the photo above, as Kerry and Sarah watch behind.

All the results are here and the standings are here.

Pics © Skip Cottage