New season draws for Royal Club events

Entries for the Royal Caledonian Curling Club's major competitions closed on June 30. Draws are being made. The numbers of teams entered for many of the events have increased from last year, particularly for the Men's and Women's Masters, the over 60s championships.

Thirty-three teams have entered for the Senior Men's Championship, up from last season. And the entry for the Bruadar Scottish Championship is also up to thirty-one teams.

The inaugural year of the Under-17 Slam was a great success. The first event of the new round of competitions has already taken place (at Perth in April, won by Michael Reid and his team) and the Slam moves to Lockerbie, September 22-23. A full complement of twenty teams line up. The draw is here.

The draw for the Scottish Mixed Seniors, at the Atholl rink, October 12-14, is now online.

On a disappointing note, only eight teams have entered the Scottish Junior Women's Championship next season. This means that there will be no need for a qualification round. Hopefully Sarah Reid's gold medals at the Worlds in Eveleth can still have a positive effect on the number of junior women playing the game in Scotland in future.

Six teams have entered the Gold League pre-qualifier, at the Dewar's Rinks, Perth, November 2-4. The draw is here. Claire Milne and Lynn Cameron (formerly of Rhona Martin's team) have a new team with Jaqui Byers and Rachael Simms, and are looking for one of the three places available in the Columba Cream Gold League proper. The other skips are Gillian Howard (former Junior Champion from 1994), Kay Adams, Claire Hamilton, Eve Muirhead and Anna Sloan.

The photo of Gillian Howard is from last season's Silver League final. Gillian played third to Alison Kinghorn, the team just missing out on automatic qualification to the Gold League. The final was won by Gail Munro's team. There's another photo of Gillian here.