Wrapping up the weekend

It was another busy weekend to round up! Let's start off with the Edinburgh International, a new WCT-e event, although the competition and the trophy have a long history. The winners (above) were L-R Andy Kapp (skip), Holger Hohne (2nd), Andy Lang (3rd) and Andreas Kempf (lead). The results are here.

A few more reminders of Murrayfield follow:

The runners-up received the famous Berne Bear trophy. L-R Conny Llungqvist, Goran Carlsson (skip), Morgan Bergkvist and Magnus Ekdahl.

You don't often see Andy Kapp getting this excited on the ice!

Goran Carlsson

The Senior Championships shared the stage on Sunday with the International event. The winners were L-R Alan Collett, Frank Forrest, Jim Wood and Michael Sutherland (skip) who beat Alan Durno's team of Peter Fraser, Willie Young and Mike Watt in the final. Gary Macfarlane's side beat Ken Watson's team in the Low Road. Find the linescores and other results here.

My favourite pic from the Seniors final!

Now this is the furthest travelled fan at Murrayfield this weekend. Andrea Boling had come from Florida. Highlight of this self-confessed curling groupie's Scottish holiday was to be watching David Murdoch play! However, Team Murdoch exited early and Andrea didn't get the chance to watch her curling idol. When the Ed heard about the story he rounded up RCCC President Matt Murdoch, whose main claim to fame of course is that he is David's dad, and arranged for Andrea to meet him instead. Not sure how impressed Andrea was, but we all hope her holiday this week in Scotland will have better outcomes!

Elsewhere, in Wetzikon in the International ZO Women's Tournament, Vicki Adams, Karen Addison, Rachael Simms and Anne Laird won three of the five games in their section, but just missed out, on ranking, on getting through to the playoff stages. Mirjam Ott's team won that WCT-e title.

At Greenacres, in the U-17 Baljaffray competition, Blair Fraser, Thomas Sloan, Kirsten McNay and Jennifer Martin beat Gavin Reid, Kyle Waddell, Craig Waddell and Andrew Muir in the final. The scores are all on the RCCC website here.

But my player of the weekend award goes to Angie Malone (below). Many of those who follow wheelchair curling will know that Angie, a Paralympic silver medallist from Pinerolo and a member of the current GB squad, has been fighting some health concerns. Despite her worries, she decided to play in the British Open this weekend at Kinross. And she skipped her team of Ian Donaldson, Jim Elliot and Jim Taylor to a 6-4 win over Jim Gault's side in the final! Results are all here.

Angie, we're all rooting for you!

Pics by Bob.

Edinburgh International webcast

Initial problems in getting the webcasting of the Edinburgh International up and running this morning appear to have been resolved.

The link is here. There will no doubt be discussion of how successful it is/has been on the Scottish Curling Forum here.

End by end scores of all the games can be found here.

Getting it out there

Curling Today goes where no other curling blogs dare to venture. Yes, this is really a photo of the inside of the Gents toilet at the Murrayfield curling rink! You see, like the organisers of events anywhere in the world, those involved with this weekend's Edinburgh International Curling Championship, sponsored by Belhaven Best, want to make sure that ALL the club members know what's about to happen at the rink, and want to encourage them to come along and support!

What better place to put a poster. Eye level, cannot be missed. The Editor is not privvy (sorry) to whether similar notices are on the back of the doors of the cubicles in the Ladies'!

Actually, plans to webcast of the weekend’s games have been finalised, for those who really cannot get along to the rink. Volunteer junior members of Edinburgh Curling Club have already had a training session from Alex Mitchell, the coordinator of the project. One of their number, Samantha Mooney, is a photography student.

Five games on Friday and five on Saturday will be broadcast over the web. Overhead cameras over three of Murrayfield’s seven sheets have been in place since the summer and pictures from those cameras will be mixed with pictures from two cameras in the bar above the sheets.

The preliminary schedule is:

Friday
9.30am Niklas Edin v David Edwards
12.00 noon John Hamilton v Kalle Kiiskinen
2.30pm Göran Carlsson v Warwick Smith
6.00pm Florian Meister v Hammy McMillan
8.30pm David Edwards v David Murdoch

Saturday
9.00am Andy Kapp v Florian Meister
11.30am Peter Loudon v Warwick Smith
2.00pm Alan Smith v Kalle Kiiskinen
5.30pm David Murdoch v Niklas Edin
8.00pm Tom Brewster v David Sik

For the semifinal and final games, it is planned to have two on-ice cameras to supplement the existing cameras.

Commentators will include Bob Kelly and Robin Copland from Edinburgh, Mairi Milne and Keith MacLennan from Perth and Kenny Edwards from Lockerbie. Keith and Kenny will be working together on at least a couple of occasions and doubtless they will provide a refreshing insight into the modern game! It will be good to see Kenny back in a curling rink, as his recovery continues (see here)!

The Seniors competition, the warm up to the main course, got underway today. Find the results here. This is Royal Club Board Chairman Bob Tait doing the hard work!

And this is Kirsty Letton's front end Pat Orr and Anne MacDougall doing the hard work on Judy Mackenzie's stone on their way to defeating Jimmy Green's Borders side.

Pics by Bob.