Loudon wins Inverness Skins

Peter Loudon, Logan Gray, Richard Woods and Alasdair Guthrie won the Inverness Skins yesterday. Robin Wilson takes up the story:

"In the final they met a rink who were playing together for the first time, the five curlers drawn from Scottish Universities who will represent Great Britain in next February's World University Games in Harbin (China) - skip John Hamilton (Napier), Andrew Craigie, Thomas Pendreigh and Michael Goodfellow (all Strathclyde) and fifth man, Ian Copland (Glasgow).

The students after winning their section with £167 beat Aberdeen's Neil Joss in the quarters then brought off a great win in the semis over David Edwards with a last end carry over skin of £80 to meet Loudon, the Section C runner-up with winnings of £147.

It was almost an all junior final until Loudon pulled off the shot of the weekend with a crucial last stone against the other surprise rink of the competition, Graham Black's Lockerbie side consisting of local junior Ali Fraser, Paul Russell and Thomas Sloan. £124 was resting on the last end and and the bank pay-in slip was about to be made to Black when Pete denied the juniors when his classy final stone got the narrowest of edges on Black's shot stone, nipping it out to lie the required two shots to take the end and the place in the final.

In the final, with the students winning £120 - £80, and a game deciding last end pot of £100 on the line, Loudon had last stone but was this time blocked out from making the required two shots to win, and the encounter extended into a draw shot challenge.

Alasdair Guthrie hit the pot lid for zero measure, Richard Wood's stone measured 6 cm, and Logan Gray's 6.3 cm. That left their skip only a leisurely roll down the ice to find the house and win the final £180-£120, returning home with a bulging wallet of £542."

Thanks Robin. Purple prose!

Photo of the finalists is also by Robin Wilson: L-R Alasdair Guthrie, Richard Woods, Logan Gray, Peter Loudon, John Hamilton, Andrew Craigie, Thomas Pendreigh, Michael Goodfellow.

Skins time

Inverness is the place to be this weekend for the 6th annual Skins competition. The format is four sections of six teams playing each other once for a first round six end skin total of £54. The section winners and runners-up carry their money forward to seven end quarterfinals where the pot is £100, the semis £160 and the finalists will play eight ends for a pot of £300.

Scottish Curler stalwart Robin Wilson forwards the following info about the Inverness event:

'Alan Smith's team went home with the lion's share of last year pot, and is back again. Smith faces a plethora of Scottish names from all ranks of curling. Seniors Alan Durno, Bob Kelly, Graeme Adam, and Ronnie Peat are looking to top up their pension funds and out to stop them are Graeme Shaw, Brian Binnie, John Hamilton, Keith MacLennan, Peter Loudon and Dave Edwards.

North support will go to Alan Campbell (Buckie) Graeme Govan (Elgin) Ali Asher (Nairn) and home based Stewart Sturrock. There are three female skips in the line up, Shona Watt, Edith Loudon and Jennifer Morrison. Local junior and EYOF squad member Blair Fraser was called upon only this week to raise a team of juniors to replace a late withdrawal.'

Looking further afield, the GB squads are still out in Canada. David Murdoch, Warwick Smith, Peter Smith and Euan Byers compete in the Best Western Wayside Inn Curling Classic in Lloydminster, Alberta. The draw for the twenty-eight team triple knockout event is here.

Kelly Wood, Jackie Lockhart, Eve Muirhead and Lynn Cameron are the four GB squad members competing in the Royal Lepage OVCA Womens Fall Classic in North Grenville, Ontario. This is a twenty-four team double knockout with consolation event. Also in the draw (here) is the RCCC National Academy team Gillian Howard, Kay Adams, Linsey Spence and Megan Priestley, the last substituting for her sister Jennifer.

Last but not least, Glen Muirhead, Greg Drummond, Scott Macleod and Scott Andrews are in the draw for the Oak Island Junior Cashspiel in Nova Scotia. Check for results here.

It's all happening at Inverness

It's a massive week ahead for the Inverness Ice Centre as the rink hosts the World Wheelchair Curling Championship Qualifying Competition, the first time that a World Curling Federation competition has ever been held in Inverness.

Bulgaria was a late withdrawal leaving nine countries to fight it out for the two places at Sursee in February next year. China is the newest country to join the wheelchair curling family. That country's team has travelled from Harbin in northern China to compete at Inverness. In the photo above that's Guangqin Xu practising at the rink this evening.

Play begins tomorrow (Monday) at 10.30 and continues through to Friday. An army of volunteers is on hand to make the visitors' stay as pleasant as possible. If you are near the rink, do drop in and give the players your support too. The results can be found here.

It was the Skins weekend at Inverness. Sponsored this year by Ross-shire Engineering (with lots of other support) the event was a success both on and off the ice! I was pleased to see that Bob Kelly's 'old codgers' team (mentioned in yesterday's blog and containing Scottish Curler correspondent and columnist Robin Copland as well as Gordon Muirhead and Tom Pendreigh) actually managed to reach the semifinals. However, the grand final was between Alan Smith's National Academy team of Neil MacArthur, David Reid and Mark Fraser and an interesting concoction of players skipped by Richard Goldie with Ian MacDonald at third, second duties being shared by Gordon Craic and Neil Hampton, with Brian Binnie, in whose name the team was, at lead.

Skins is a game played best by the wiley and crafty and Goldie's side held Smith to the very last skin of the final. Smith stole that end though and won the game £215 to £85.

Above: Alan Smith and Richard Goldie in the final. David Maclennan of Ross-shire Engineering presents the trophy to (L-R) Alan Smith, Neil MacArthur, David Reid and Mark Fraser. Photos by Bob.