Seniors' time

The Scottish Seniors Championships take place this week at the Lanarkshire Ice Rink, Hamilton. The twelve men's teams play in two sections, with the top two teams in each section qualifying for the knockout stages on Sunday.

The current champions, Keith Prentice, Lockhart Steele, Robin Aitken and Tommy Fleming, won the bronze medals at the World Senior Championships in Dunedin last season. The Scots lost to Paul Pustovar's USA in an extra end in the semifinal, but beat Switzerland in the third place decider. The Prentice team have their first game against Gordon Butler's team tomorrow (Thursday) at 12.30. The draw is here.

On the women's side, the 2009 champions, Marion Craig, Rhona Fleming, Catherine Raeburn and Anne Malcolm, are back again too. They finished fourth at the World Seniors, narrowly missing out on a medal.

The women have not had a qualifying competition this season and all nineteen entries play at Hamilton in four sections. The top two from each qualify for quarterfinals on Sunday. The first games in the competition are today (Wednesday) at 15.00. The draw is here.

All the results will be on the Royal Club website here.

Photos are © Skip Cottage and are from the European Seniors Invitation earlier this season at Greenacres.

Seniors qualifying

The Forfar rink (above) was one of the two venues for the Scottish Seniors Qualifying competition this weekend. All the teams, even those with furthest to travel, eg from Nairn, made it through to Forfar, despite the snow! Three teams qualified from each of the two sections. Jim Stevenson, Don Stark and David Rutherford came forward from one section, and Andy McGlynn, David Clydesdale and Ian Young from the other.

At Greenacres, there were three sections with two teams qualifying from each. Our Senior Champions, skipped by Keith Prentice, made sure of their place in the finals again (at the Lanarkshire Ice Rink, Hamilton, February 11-14) by winning their first four games. Graeme Adam's team, winners two seasons ago, are through too. George Christie and Gordon Butler came out of Section B, the surprise here being the demise of the Colin Hamilton rink, with just one win in four games. Ian Gillespie and Gary Macfarlane were the other two qualifiers.

All the results are here.

Pic of the Forfar rink is courtesy of Mike Ferguson.

The Road to Chelyabinsk

It's not in every post that I think about Chelyabinsk, and Ayr, together. No they are not twinned! Let me explain.

The Scottish Senior Qualifying Playdowns will take place this weekend at two venues, Greenacres and Forfar. There are twenty-seven over-50s men's teams entered, looking first of all for a place in the Scottish Senior Finals at the Lanarkshire Ice Rink, Hamilton, February 8-10. From there the new Senior Champions will take part in the World Senior Championships in Chelyabinsk, Russia, April 16-24.

Keith Prentice (above) with Lockhart Steele, Robin Aitken and Tommy Fleming are the current champions. They play in Section A at Greenacres and are up against Gordon Jackson in their first game this morning. There are fifteen teams at the Renfrewshire rink, in three sections, with the top two from each qualifying for the finals. At Forfar, two sections of six teams will compete to find three qualifiers from each. Look for the results here.

There are nineteen entries for the Senior Women's Championship, all of whom will compete at Hamilton next month.

Junior curlers are in action too this weekend, at Ayr, in the Junior Challenge, which begins on Saturday morning. In this event each young curlers' club fields two teams. At least two of the players must be female, and one of these must throw skip, or third, stones.

Galleon, Ayr, Kinross, Aberdeen, Stirling, Dumfries, Lockerbie, Stranraer, Braehead, Greenacres and Forfar will all provide two teams for the event. Hamilton will field two sets of two, and Gogar three sets of two. Play is in four sections progressing to the semifinals and finals on Sunday. The draw is here, and the results will be here.

Pic of Keith Prentice is by Bob.