Calendar Girl Shock News: Will there be curling glamour in 2008?

Those of you who remembered that yesterday was the first day of October would have been greeted, when you turned the page of Ana Arce's Fire and Ice Team Sponsorship calendar (what do you mean you don't have one), by former Scottish and Euro Mixed Curling Champion Kim Brewster. How pleasant to have Kim staring down from the wall of my office this month! Kim follows on from Jackie Lockhart who starred in September.

The big news of course is that there will NOT be a new calendar in January. Interviewed in Madrid where she was competing for Spain in the 2007 Euro Mixed, Ana confirmed that a January-December publication was not in the plans. The good news is that a curling season calendar (September 2008 - May 2009) is being considered.

I'll just have to go back to buying the Scottish Munros calendar for the beginning of the year!

Above: Kim Brewster. Below: Ana Arce whips her 2008 models into shape on the ice at the Palacio de Hielo.

The glamour in curling

The Scottish Curler's Swiss correspondent, Erwin Sautter, has sent a summer curling update about Carmen Schaefer (who you will remember was a member of the Swiss Junior World Champion rink in 1999) and that she has teamed up with Mirjam Ott (who you will remember captured Olympic Silver in 2006) to go for Gold in Vancouver 2010. The Swiss Sunday paper, SonntagsBlick, gave Carmen the full treatment in a feature in the August 19 edition, see photo above.

I rather suspect that Erwin just wanted to send me a nice pic for my birthday!

However, it got me thinking that we in Scotland have our own share of glamour on the ice. There are just nine days to go before we turn over a new month on Ana Arce's Team Sponsorship calendar to reveal Miss September ........... Jackie Lockhart! Jackie, world champion skip in 2002, is now playing three to Kelly Wood and the team were bronze medallists in Aomori last season. Jackie had shoulder surgery earlier this summer and has made good progress in her recovery from that.

So, will there be a 2008 glamour calendar? Ana Arce's website does seem to indicate that there are plans. Could there even be male models? David Murdoch, Ewan Byers, Keith Prentice and Logan Gray have all been touted as Scottish possibilities!
Perhaps not.

There was glamour aplenty at the Editor's birthday bash last Saturday! RCCC Ladies' Branch President Patricia Thompson came suitably attired in an outfit to match Abbamania's costumes (below) and was a dab hand at the washer tossing too.

Last word on birthdays. Birthdays are good for you - the more you have the longer you live!


Jackie Lockhart pic is by Richard Gray. Birthday pics are by Hugh Stewart.