Dumfries Underway

The first event on the 2012/13 Scottish Curling Tour is now underway in Dumfries. The event is in its second year and has increased in size to twenty teams all competing for the title of Ice Bowl Open Champion. This year’s field includes a number of top national sides plus visitors from the Netherlands, Latvia and Wales.

The format of the tournament is two ten team sections, each with five games of play under the Schenkel system. The top four teams from each section on Saturday night will progress to the quarter finals.

Leading the way in Section 1 Team Latvia are tied at the top with Team Logan Gray. These two teams having shared the points with a closely fought tie in their second game of Friday’s session.

In Section 2, current holders Team Frazer Hare continue their dominance in Dumfries winning three games out of three as of Saturday morning. The gathering group on two wins consists of Alan Hannah, Graham Shedden, David Jones and Hannah Fleming.

Team Latvia.

 

Petrofac Aberdeen City Open

The 2013 Petrofac Aberdeen City Open will be the final event on this season's tour.

The event will be held from 1st-3rd February 2013. Games will begin at 12.30pm Friday 1st February. 24 teams can be accommodated split into two sections of 12. The final will be held at 3pm on Sunday 3rd February. All teams will be guaranteed four games under the Schenkel System.

A separate Hot Shots competition will be held on Sunday 3rd February for eliminated teams with cash prizes.

www.aberdeencityopen.blogspot.co.uk

There are just a few spaces left so please get your entries in via the competition blogsite or by contacting Laura at development@curl-aberdeen.co.uk.

Profile of Team Fleming

Current Junior World Champion Hannah Fleming has a change to her line up this season with Jennifer Dodds coming in at second to replace Alice Spence who has now aged out of the juniors. Lauren Gray and Abi Brown remain at third and lead. Debbie Knox will be their support coach.

Their main ambition for this season is to successfully defend the Scottish and World Junior titles won last year. They also wish to make their mark on the ladies circuit and being previous runners up in the ladies who would bet against them achieving their goals.

Hannah stated that all the competing teams at the juniors will pose a threat to them. Teams are likely to raise their game against them so she is expecting to have to play at their best at all times.

Team Fleming are competing in 3 SCT events (Dumfries, Braehead and Kinross). They are also playing in 2 ladies competitions overseas in Basel and Bern along with going back to Ottowa for the Junior Superspiel. They will also be at the Lockerbie Junior Invitational and the Aberdeen Ladies Open, along with the Scottish Juniors and Scottish Ladies Championships. This certainly seems like a very busy schedule for the girls.

Hannah felt that the SCT event they enjoyed the most last season was the Dumfries Ice Bowl Open as it was great fun and allowed her team to get into the swing of the new season early against some challenging opposition.

We look forward to seeing Hannah and her team at Dumfries in mid September and wish them all the best for their busy season ahead.

Photo © Leslie Ingram-Brown

Ice Bowl Open Draw

The draw has been made for the first SCT event and is detailed below:


                                             SECTION 1

1               K Murray                     v                     6   Ireland- Mitchell
2               G.Sloan                        v                   7   R Whyte
3               F Morton                      v                   8   Maitland
4               Latvia                           v                   9    J  Russell
5               F Kingan                      v                   10  L Gray


GAME TIMES

          GAME 1 – Friday 14th 10.30am– 12.30pm

          GAME 2  – Friday 14th 3.30pm– 5.30pm
         
          GAME 3  – Friday 14th 8.30pm– 10.30pm

          GAME 4 – Saturday 15th 11.30am– 13.30pm

          GAME 5 – Saturday 15th 3.30pm– 5.30pm


                                               SECTION 2

1              F Hare                              v                  6     H Fleming
2              Wales – Pougher              v                 7     G Fleming
3              I Dyer                               v                   8    Holland -Villian
4              D Jones                             v                 9    S Reid
5              G Sheddon                        v               10   A Hannah

GAME TIMES

          GAME 1 –  Friday 14th 1pm– 3pm

          GAME 2 –  Friday 14th 6pm– 8pm

          GAME 3 –  Saturday 15th 9am– 11am

          GAME 4 –  Saturday 15th 2pm– 4pm

          GAME 5 –  Saturday 15th 6pm– 8pm          

TOP 4 TEAMS WILL QUALIFY FOR ¼FINALS

Quarter Finals Sunday 9am– 11am
Semi Final Sunday 12noon – 2pm
Finals Sunday 3pm – 5pm

Ice Bowl Open

Only 3 weeks until the first event of the season at Dumfries and still a couple of places left so make sure you get your entry in.

Draw I believe will be made next week and will be posted here.

Your entry fee will give you free entry to the Ice Hockey match on the Saturday between Solway Sharks and the Trafford Metros.

Profile of Team Shedden

The Shedden team which finished 5th on the SCT leaderboard last season is very much looking forward to the season ahead and hope to participate in 6 of the 8 SCT events.

They also plan to play in the Scottish Championships.

Chay Telfer and John Tait are returning again this season with Graeme Hay coming in to replace Hugh Thompson.

With his head still fully lodged in summer mode, Graham's goals and aspirations lie with getting the entry forms in on time and finding a suitable team outfit.

As consummate athletes, Team Shedden is planning a sober season. This does not involve avoidance of alcohol, it just involves avoidance of Team Gracie aka Team COO!

He is very happy to see the curling tour going from strength to strength and plan to support it as best they can.

We wish Team Shedden all the best for the season and look forward to seeing them on the SCT.

Profile of Team MacDonald

Last years SCT runner up Ally Fraser has joined forces with Ewan MacDonald to add a bit of young blood to a very experienced line up.

Ewan will also be joined by Euan Byers and Duncan Fernie in what will be a strong line up for next season.

It will be really good to see Duncan back on the ice.

This team will have ambitions of winning the Scottish Championships and getting another chance to represent Scotland on the International stage.

The MacDonald team are planning to play in a couple of SCT events along with the Scottish Championships. Ewan was runner up in the Stirling Invitational on last seasons tour and will be hoping to go one better this year.

Ewan stated that it was great to see the Tour developing and growing and hoped this would lead to more teams challenging at the top level.

We wish Ewan and his team all the success for this season.

Photos © Skip Cottage

Profile of Team Smith

We thought it would be good idea to find out what plans the winners of the first Scottish Curling Tour had for next season.

Kyle Smith and his team pipped Ally Fraser by 27 points to 24 last season to win the first prize.

Included in the first prize of the Scottish Curling Tour last year was an opportunity for the winning team to spend time during the summer conducting elite training courtesy of the World Class Performance Programme.

Kyle stated that his team worked with Soren Gran and Nancy Smith on various sessions which covered sliding technique and delivery release. He felt these were very worthwhile and his team thanks Soren and Nancy for their time and expertise.

We asked Kyle about his plans and schedule for this season and he confirmed that his junior team now has his brother Cammy in at lead, in place of the over age Kerr Drummond. Aswell as featuring on the SCT, as part of their inclusion in the Performance Squad 2012/13 , Kyle’s team will be competing in four Champion’s Tour events across Europe, the Scottish Mens and the Scottish Juniors (of which they are the holders).

This is a busy schedule indeed along with juggling university workaround.

The teams main aim for this season is to successfully defend their Scottish Junior title which commences with qualifiers at Perth on the weekend of 7-9 December. They also would like to put on a good show in the Scottish Mens Championships and we have no doubt they will indeed be a team to watch this coming season.

We all wish Kyle and his team the best of luck for the season.

Guest Bloggers Wanted

With the SCT blog now up and running, we would like to invite volunteers to try their hand at blogging for one (or more) weekends on the 2012/13 SCT calendar.

The aim is for each event to have its own budding reporter who will broadcast through this portal the on and off ice happenings over the weekend.

The blogspot is very easy to use and some brief training will be given in advance.

For inspiration you can visit the 1,800 posts still archived on www.skipcottagecurling.blogspot.com

To register interest for a specific event please e-mail neil.joss@btopenworld.com

Dumfries Open

Dumfries Open on the 14th - 16th September have still places left so get your entry in to be sure of a place.

There will be foreign representation at the event with a team from Latvia and also from Holland.

The tournament committee have decided to re-vamp last years prize fund. Depending on achieving the desired 24 entries the following prizes will be up for grabs

Winners - £600
Runners – up - £400
Semi Finals - £250
1/4finals - £100

It is hoped that all teams will be able to access video footage of all games on request. Teams would need to provide appropriate memory sticks or DVDs to download footage.

The committee will confirm this availability in the next couple of months.

Entry forms can be found at www.dibca.co.uk or contact Graham at the Ice Bowl through graham@royalcaledoniancurlingclub.org