Next season's competition entries

You may well have noticed that the draws for next season's main events are appearing on the Royal Caledonian Curling Club website. Colin Hamilton, the competitions' manager, confirms that entries this year have remained strong. Only the Seniors' events are down in numbers, predictably as not all teams would be in a position to contemplate the self-funded trip to New Zealand for the Worlds, however attractive the event and the location. (The fall in entries for the Scottish Women's Championship, pointed out in the comment below, has already been mentioned, see here.)

The names of those competing in teams for the Junior Championships have been posted (here). In the Junior Women's event, entries are up, to eleven next season. The championship will be decided in the one week at Perth, February 3-8, using a slightly complicated formula to get down to the one team. Who will that be? With Scottish (and World) Champion skip Eve Muirhead recruiting Anna Sloan who she beat in the final last season, and with Vicki Adams and Sarah Macintyre still as the front end, this is the team that the others will have to beat!

There are twenty Junior Men's teams. There will be a qualifying playdown at Curl Aberdeen, January 23-25. Four sections of five, top two teams in each go forward to the Scottish Junior Championships at Perth, February 3-8.

Scottish Junior Champ Glen Muirhead has also recruited a former rival, Greg Drummond, to throw third stones and the team goes forward with the two Scotts - Andrews and Macleod - into next season. Remember of course that this is the team that has been selected to try to win Scotland a place at the World Juniors in Vancouver this season (see here). The Muirhead team will go to Taarnby in January for the European Junior Challenge, to try to qualify Scotland for the 2009 World Junior Championship.

Top: Anna Sloan takes over from Kerry Barr, now too old for Juniors, in Eve Muirhead's Scottish Champion team. Above: Greg Drummond, on the left, steps down from skipping his own rink, to play third for Glen Muirhead. Pics by Bob.

Missing in action

When the Royal Caledonian Curling Club issued the list of supported athletes in Scotland earlier today, two names were conspiculously absent - Anna Sloan and Laura Kirkpatrick.

Anna, runner-up in the Scottish Junior Championship this year, is playing with Eve Muirhead in the juniors next season, and Laura was recently selected for the World University Games squad.

Turns out that it was an error when the list was being made up. Both Anna and Laura will receive West Area Institute support. Performance Development Coach Rhona Martin has apologised to both athletes, and the information on the Royal Club website (here) has been amended.

My count now is one hundred and twenty athletes receiving support in one form or another.

Top: Anna Sloan by Richard Gray
Above: Laura Kirkpatrick by Jim Law

Young Scots fly high in Nova Scotia

Well done to Glen Muirhead and his RCCC National Academy team (L-R above: Gordon McDougall, Scott Andrews, Scott Macleod, Glen Muirhead) who won the Oak Island Junior Cashspiel yesterday at the Chester Club in Nova Scotia. I'm short on details yet (and the event website has been unhelpful) but it is quite an achievement for the team in their first season together, and on this their first trip abroad. (Added 4.15pm. The event website here now has a description of what happened)

Anna Sloan's team (pictured here) also made the playoffs and I hear lost out in the quarters at an extra end.

Junior teams abroad

The Royal Club's National Academy teams skipped by Glen Muirhead and Anna Sloan are off today to the Oak Island Junior Cashspiel at the Chester Curling Club in Nova Scotia. There are fifteen junior men and fifteen junior women's teams playing round robins in sections of five. The results should be found on the event's website here. Glen's team is shown here, and Anna's here.

So how did Jamie Dick and Greg Drummond's teams fare last weekend? Jamie Dick, Andrew Williamson, Colin Dick and Andrew Noble (photo here) were beaten in the final of the Ultima Curling Classic at Kitchener-Waterloo.

Greg Drummond, James Dunn, Tom Pendreigh and Kerr Drummond (photo here) won the Consolation event (and 600 dollars) at the OVCA Junior Superspiel in the Ottowa Valley area.

Glen's photo is from the European Mixed Curling Championship in Madrid in September. Anna's pic is from the Gold League Prequalifying event last weekend. Both photos by Bob.