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

Classic curling at Kinross

On my way north to Pitlochry yesterday I stopped off at the Kinross rink to see a little of the morning play in the Kinross Junior Classic 2007. They make a mean bacon buttie at the rink too!

Anyway, I watched the quarterfinals of the sixteen team junior men's event. Some great curling was on show. There were only six entries for the junior women's event. But what I saw there was encouraging too.

If you want to read the report, Robin Copland will have this in the November Scottish Curler. He writes enthusiastically about Kay Adams' last stone draw to the button to beat Anna Sloan's team. Kay lined up with Annie Barr, Megan Priestley and Nicola MacDonald.

In the men's final Lindsay Gray, Michael Goodfellow, Peter Macintyre and Ian Copland defeated Graeme Black's side in a close game.

I would have liked to have seen the Classic finals, but yesterday the Scottish Senior Mixed beckoned, and, having not yet perfected the art of being in two places at the one time, I headed north suitably refreshed. Yes, curling clubs with good ice and tasty bacon rolls are just where the Editor likes to be!

Top: Ian Copland, Michael Goodfellow and Peter Macintyre work Lindsay Gray's stone into the four foot. Above: Nicola MacDonald and Megan Priestley sweep Annie Barr's stone as Kay Adams calls line. Photos by Bob Cowan.

A Coaching Weekend

When Rhona Martin announced her retirement from competitive curling at the end of last season to take up a coaching post with the West Area Institute of Sport, there were many who applauded her decision, given how much knowledge she has to impart to Scotland's young teams. I've seen her hard at work in different roles over the summer, but it was poignant to find her on the ice yesterday at Greenacres. There she was - with the 2002 Winter Olympic banner hanging proudly in the background - working with Kay Adams and her junior team of Annie Barr, Megan Priestley and Nicola MacDonald. Greenacres was Rhona's home rink when she skipped her team to gold at Ogden.

I wonder how she will feel when the Gold League gets underway this season ......... without her?

Same question of Debbie Knox, Rhona's long time third player. Also retired now, she has fortunately not been lost to the sport. She is coaching Claire Hamilton, Claire MacDonald, Linsey Spence and Jennifer Priestley this season and was there too at Greenacres with that team at the National Academy on-ice training weekend. There is a photo of Debbie and Team Hamilton here.

Elsewhere in the curling world, David Murdoch, Graeme Connal, Peter Smith and Neil McArthur reached the quarterfinals of the Baden Masters. Team Murdoch won one, lost one in A, won one, lost one in B, won the last qualifier out of C, before bowing out on Sunday morning to Swiss opposition. A small share of the prize fund was their reward! Warwick Smith's side of Craig Wilson, John Dunn and Ross Hepburn went out in the C road, winning one game from four starts. The event was won by Brad Gushue's Canadian side.

David Murdoch's photo is by Hugh Stewart. Rhona, with Kay Adams and Megan Priestley, is by Bob Cowan.