Fifth players for World Juniors

Just a postscript to the Scottish Junior Championships. The fifth player who will go to Vancouver for the World Junior Men's Championship with Team Black is Glen Muirhead, who skipped the team which secured Scotland's place in the event at Taarnby in January. Alan Hannah is the coach.

Kay Adams, who did such a great job as fifth for Eve Muirhead in Ostersund last year, will again take on that role in Vancouver. Note to Vicki - careful on the stairs this year! Isobel Hannen is the coach.

The World Junior Championships website is here.

Top: Glen Muirhead photo by Richard Gray
Below: Kay Adams photo by Bob

Memories - good and bad - from 2008

I was fully intending to post a list of the various 'happenings' from this past year, the good and the bad of 2008, as seen by Curling Today. I must admit that I found this difficult to do. Highlights included moose hunting in Ostersund, seeing Scottish teams winning medals, learning that the National Curling Academy project is finally off and running ....... But when I started thinking about the bad, such as the Vernon saga, I had to stop. It is all so depressing. Then I realised I was just getting maudlin.

Maudlin is what many Scots get at this time of year! Most dictionaries have a couple of definitions:

a. tearfully emotional
b. foolishly sentimental because of drunkenness.

So, this Hogmanay, let's not look back but instead look to the future. I'm sure that today four young men, Glen Muirhead, Greg Drummond, Scott Macleod and Scott Andrews are doing just that. They are about to head off to the Taarnby rink in Copenhagen to try to win Scotland's place in the World Junior Curling Championships in Vancouver, March 5-15. You will remember the story. In Ostersund last season Scotland's junior men finished in ninth position at the World Juniors with a 2-7 win-loss record, and we were relegated (explained here).

Rather than have a playdown, the Royal Club decided to nominate Glen Muirhead's new season team, with three still eligible from Ostersund, to try get us back into the world junior top ten (see here). They will compete in the European Junior Curling Challenge, January 2-8. There are thirteen junior men's teams looking for two places at the Worlds in Vancouver. The Scots play in section A, with seven teams. Team Muirhead are up against Spain on Saturday evening, and then have the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Russia, Slovakia and Estonia, in that order. The top teams from Section A and section B (which has Poland, France, Italy, Belgium, Latvia and Finland) then play each other. The winner goes to Vancouver. The loser plays the winner of a match between the two second placed finishers in each section. The winner of this game also goes through.

There are eleven junior women's teams also fighting it out for two places. Scotland (the current world junior champs) already has a place in Vancouver. Anna Fowler's English team are challenging for the first time.

The event website (for results) is here.



Here they are at Lockerbie recently. Top: Scott Andrews and Scott Macleod. Above: Glen Muirhead and Greg Drummond. Pics by Bob.

Right, that's it for now. May I wish all Curling Today and Scottish Curler supporters health and happiness in 2009!

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.

World University Games Squad update

The British Curling squad for the World University Games, in Harbin, China, February 18-28, 2009, was announced recently (see here). Andrew Craigie, John Hamilton, Glen Muirhead and Thomas Pendreigh were selected as the men's team.

The news today (here) is that Glen has withdrawn from the squad.

The reason given is that he is already heavily committed to competitive curling with his own team in the Juniors next season. This team will go to Taarnby in January for the European Junior Challenge, to try to qualify Scotland for the 2009 World Junior Championship.

Glen feels with this commitment to curling he needs to have some time available for his university studies. Hence his decision to leave the WUG squad.

High Performance Curling Coach Cate Brewster is now looking for two more athletes to complete a squad of five. The BC announcement says, "Candidates will be selected on recent statistics and results." To be eligible, athletes must be students and under the age of 28.

There is already an interesting thread about the WUG, including comment on the commitment required, on the Scottish Curling Forum here.

The pic is of Glen at the World Juniors in Ostersund, by Bob

Muirhead team selected for European Junior Challenge

Glen Muirhead, Scott Macleod, Scott Andrews and Gordon McDougall, with David Reid as fifth player, did not have the best of weeks at the World Junior Men's Championship in Ostersund, Sweden in March. They finished in ninth place in the rankings, winning two and losing seven of their round robin games. That means that a Scottish team will have to compete in the European Junior Challenge Competition 2009 in Taarnby, Copenhagen, early in January, to try to win one of two qualifying places for European teams for next season's World Junior Championship in Vancouver.

With McDougall now too old for juniors, Muirhead has put together a new team for next season, recruiting one of his main rivals, Greg Drummond, to play third. Scott Macleod will play second stones and Scott Andrews will be lead in the rink.

The Muirhead team have been selected to be the Scottish team in Taarnby. There had been some suggestions that there might be a playoff to decide which team would go to Denmark. But the Royal Club's Performance Committee has invited Glen and his team to take the responsibility of getting Scotland into the world top ten for the Vancouver Worlds.

The dates of the competition are January 2-8, 2009. The Taarnby Club's website is here.

Last season's European Junior Challenge was held in Prague, and twelve countries took part in the junior men's event, see the Curling Today post here.

Glen's photo from Ostersund is by Bob.

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.