The week ahead

I've already mentioned that the Swiss Cup Basel begins tomorrow in Arlesheim. The Scottish teams taking part are skipped by David Murdoch, Tom Brewster and Logan Gray. The matchup for the first games in the thirty-two team triple knockout is here. It looks as if there will again be webcasts from Laola1.tv, see here.

Nearer home, the second of the Scottish Curling Tour events, the Cardwell Garden Centre Braehead Open, begins tomorrow evening. The draw is on this page. Thirty-two teams are taking part - and they are a real cross section of Scottish curling! In addition teams from Russia, Finland, Netherlands, Ireland and Wales are taking part.

After three preliminary rounds, the teams ranked 1-8 in each section will progress to the High Road Knockout. This will be played on Saturday evening, with quarterfinals, semis and finals on Sunday. There will be a 3rd-4th playoff in the High Road.

Teams ranked 9-14 in each section, twelve teams in total, progress to the Middle Road Schenkel, carrying forward their first three game results. They will play two further games – making five in total, except the 11th and 12th ranked teams after the fourth game, who will be eliminated.

Teams ranked 15 and 16 in each division will progress to the Low Road semifinal, which will be played on Sunday morning at 8.30am, with the final at 2pm on the Sunday. There's certainly something for everyone at the Braehead Open.

At Stranraer the Ladies' Branch Unders and Overs Competition is at the North West Castle rink on Saturday and Sunday. Twelve teams are in the draw for this, see here.

At the Taarnby Curling Club in Denmark, David Edwards, Kerry Barr, Scott Macleod and Louise Edwards will carry Scotland's colours in the European Mixed Championship. On Saturday, the Scots play Austria in their first game in the Red Section which has nine teams, including Russia, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Netherlands, Wales and Romania, as well as Austria, already mentioned. Eight countries compete in each of the other two sections. The website for the event is here if you want to follow how our team does in the week ahead.

Although the competition does not involve Scotland, the European Championship C Group Qualifiers will be played alongside the Euro Mixed.

L-R: Louise Edwards, Scott Macleod, Kerry Barr and David Edwards, Scotland's representatives at the European Mixed Championship in Taarnby. Photo © Skip Cottage.

Murdoch Loses to Ferbey

Just to complete the story of the weekend, I see that David Murdoch, Glen Muirhead, Ross Paterson and Richard Woods lost their quarterfinal match against the Randy Ferbey team at the Point Optical Curling Classic at Saskatoon yesterday. Tied in the final end, David Nedohin, who plays the last stone for the Ferbey team, made a hit and stick for the Canadian 7-6 win. Mike McEwen won the event.

Team Murdoch now head directly to the third of the Curling Champions Tour events of the 2011-12 season, the Swiss Cup Basel in Arlesheim. Tom Brewster and Logan Gray are the two other Scottish sides in this thirty-two team triple knockout.

The photo is of Team Murdoch practising at Greenacres in August and is © Skip Cottage.

Basel update

Here's a quick update on the Scottish progress in the Curling Champions Tour event in Switzerland this weekend - the Swiss Cup Basel.

Ally Fraser, Blair Fraser, Thomas Sloan and Kerr Drummond finished the weekend with two wins and three losses. David Murdoch had local Markus Eggler at third substituting for Warwick Smith who was unavailable because of work commitments, Glen Muirhead and Ross Hepburn. The Murdoch team ran up against Tom Brewster (with Greg Drummond, Scott Andrews and Michael Goodfellow) in the B Road on Saturday. The two elite funded sides went to an extra end, before Murdoch hit and rolled out with last stone, to lose. I watched much of the game on LAOLA1.tv, and most enjoyable it was too, with Brian Gray's commentary on the high-quality webcast.

The loss dropped Murdoch into the C road where they defeated Ally Fraser's team before Norway's Thomas Ulsrud took their own last life.

Brewster's team won two more in B to reach the quarterfinals where they lost to Baden Masters winner Thomas Lips. In the other quarters, European Champion Niklas Edin lost to Andy Kapp.

Ulsrud was beaten by Team Schwaller, and Team Attinger beat A-Road qualifier Team Pescia 6:4.

The big money semifinals (Kapp v Attinger and Schwaller v Lips) and the final are tomorrow, Monday, and the webcast can be found here if you don't have to work!

The top pic is a LAOLAtv1 screenshot showing Markus Eggler competing with the David Murdoch team.

Weekend action

So, what all is happening this weekend? I've already mentioned the celebrations at Stranraer.

I'll be keeping my eye on Arlesheim, where three Scottish teams, skipped by Tom Brewster, David Murdoch and Ally Fraser, are among the thirty-two teams entered in the Swiss Cup Basel. It's the first competitive outing for Scottish Junior Champion Ally's new team of Blair Fraser (3rd), Thomas Sloan (2nd) and Kerr Drummond (lead). Great experience for them.

The Curling Champions Tour event is triple knockout with first games tomorrow (Friday) at 09.30, leading to quarterfinals on Sunday. Semifinals and final are not until Monday (08:15 and 12:15). Look out for webcasting too on the Laola1 TV site.

The event website is here for the draw and results.

I plan to look in at the Braehead rink to see how the Braehead Open competition translates into a weekend format. I hope too that the organisers have found another rink to fill in for the one that withdrew.

The same problem, a late call off, has beset the organisers at Forfar. There is now one space in the Forfar Open next Friday and Saturday (October 8-9). Contact the Forfar rink (details here) if your team would like to take part, or for more information you can email Jill Macdonald at the rink (jill /at/forfarindoorsports.co.uk).