Almost perfection

The showdown between the two former Scottish Junior Champions, Alan MacDougall (1991) representing England and Robin Gray (1982) representing Ireland, got off to a great start when both skips covered the button with their Last Stone Draw meaning that the umpire had to get out the old faithful coin to decide who would get the hammer. Ireland called wrongly but then drew first blood when Alan was heavy with a draw against two at the second end after a blanked first end.

For those who may not appreciate the concept of the Last Stone Draw, a quick summary. Before the start of every game each team has 9 minutes practice and at the end of that time they are required to draw one stone to the house. The team with the nearer stone has the hammer at the first end. Obviously a stone covering the hole cannot be measured and scores a 0.0 distance while a stone that does not end up in the house is given a distance of 185.4cm.

The idea was introduced to bring another skill level to curling rather than depending upon the luck of a toss or simply allocating the hammer evenly between the teams. For the majority of teams the pre-game practice becomes focussed for at least the last three minutes on throwing practice draws to the button.

After all the round robin games the worst score is discarded and the others are averaged, with the resultant Draw Shot Challenge (DSC) distance being used to determine ranking where this is needed for deciding who plays who in tiebreakers or the final overall ranking of teams where there is more than one group.

Alan MacDougall’s average over seven games this week, with one discard, has been 5.23cm (2 inches in old money)! His sequence was 9.0, 5.5, 0.0, 8.7, 8.2, 64.8 (discarded) and 0.0! So my question is – if teams become so good at this that a coin toss starts to be needed more often will we need to find some other procedure to decide the hammer? Those are quite amazing numbers from Alan but he is not alone in getting the draw spot on – for the last four games of the Round Robin Stuart Hills of Wales covered the button three times and the fourth distance was 6.5cm! Of the 8 teams playing the last session in the Blue Group 3 covered the button, while the others were 2.3, 2.8, 32.3, 81.1 and one with the maximum of 185.4 (must try harder).

Of course having done all that hard work just to get the hammer one then needs to make sure that one uses it! And after failing to draw against two in the second end, further mistakes from England left them 1-7 down at the halfway stage. A further loss of one at the sixth end and it was early handshakes.

Ireland go to the 1/1 Page play-off game, probably against Hungary, while it looks as though England will face Russia in the 2/2 play-off game – these games will take place Thursday afternoon/evening.

It is all there in black and white

One of the features of International sport is the variety of bright colours that distinguish different nationalities, often, though not always, based on the colours of their national flag or some national mythology. Hence we have red and white for England and blue and white for Scotland, green and yellow for Australia and South Africa. I have never quite worked out why it should be blue for Italy (though of course all Ferraris should be red).

So it is with curling – the bright yellow and blue of Sweden, the red and white of Russia or Canada and the yellow and red of China. So why am I sitting here in the B arena looking out over a sea of black and white! We have from left to right in the black corner (if that is not a geometrical impossibility) the black of Spain (why?); the black (with blue undershirts) of Estonia – national flag contains blue and black so that is not too surprising; the black of Slovakia (why?), the black with green highlights of Ireland (green obviously, but black?) and the black of Finland (why?).

In white we have Wales (why?); Poland (flag is half white – so OK); white with red highlights of England (pretty obviously OK); white with red undershirts of Austria (again reflecting their national flag) and the white with red and green highlights of Hungary (matches National Flag).

So as regards suitability the whites win hands down, so what is it with the BLACK!

Sounds like Mr Grumpy is back again (see previous blog), but until the players turn around it is not possible to know at a glance on many occasions which country you are watching. It used to be that red was the universal colour and it is still very prevalent, and of course it is specifically identified in WCF rules as not being a light colour!

(John, you're beginning to sound just like me. Bob)

Anyway enough inconsequentials – what about the action. While Ireland and England have sewn up the blue group (and tomorrow’s game will be the first between their men’s teams at this level), the red group is still wide open. In the last session Hungary, Russia and Finland all won while Austria lost and so with one game to go Hungary and Russia are on 5-1 and Finland and Austria on 4-2. Finland and Austria play each other in the last game tomorrow, Hungary play Spain while Russia have the potentially easier task of defeating Lithuania.

England beat Croatia 9-1, and with Wales winning against Netherlands this consigned Croatia to the C Division next year where they would have been this season if Bulgaria had not withdrawn from last year’s Europeans. Croatia have now had two winless European Championships but maybe they can break the sequence in their last game against Belgium.

In the red group the threatened countries are Slovakia on one win and Belarus on zero and they play each other tomorrow. A win for Slovakia will make them safe but if Belarus are victorious then they will be back on the ice for another go at each other.

In the ladies’ competition the top three of Finland, Poland and Hungary are definitely in the playoffs while behind is a bit of a log jam for the fourth and final slot. Slovakia are on 4-3 while Estonia, England and Austria are on 3-4. Austria have the easiest finish with games against Ireland and Wales while England have their fate in their own hands as they have to play Slovakia and Estonia.

It looks almost certain that Wales will be relegated to Division 3 next year although a victory against Spain would help their chances of survival enormously as it would leave them level with Spain before they play Austria in the last game. Ireland and Spain are the other two countries under threat – two out of the three will go down.

England and Ireland Through to Playoffs

The first qualification issue was decided in the B arena this morning, before most of you back home in Britain were up, when the men of Ireland and England were assured of their places in the Page play-offs with a couple of games still to play. The only thing to be finalised is who finishes first and who finishes second and that will be decided in the last session of round robin play tomorrow morning when the two countries meet.

England’s morning got off to a bad start when they lost four to Wales in the first end. But after blanking the second end they picked up two and then stole a three before Wales drew level after five ends. So the second half began back at square one and it was a complete turnaround as England jumped into a lead and held on to win 9-6.

Meanwhile Ireland were suffering their first defeat of the week, losing to Belgium. England’s qualification depended on Estonia beating Poland and this one went to an extra end, Estonia’s third in six games. For the first time this week they won one and thus the qualified teams were determined.

England play Croatia later today but Ireland have only the game against England left to play. No matter the result of the England v Croatia game the top qualification spot will depend on the winner of Ireland v England, because if teams are tied on games won, it is the result between the teams that is the first determinant for deciding ranking.

None of the top teams in the other section were playing this morning and so it is still all to play for among Russia, Austria, Hungary (all 4 wins and 1 loss) and Finland (3 wins and 2 losses).

England’s ladies continued to play well and impress last night but fell at the final hurdle to Hungary when Anna’s draw for an extra end fell half an inch short. That is three consecutive games, against the top three teams in the group, that have been lost by such a small margin. The team were very down and exhausted last night but they can still pick themselves up and qualify. Games left against Wales, Slovakia and Estonia should be easier than the previous three – it may all come down to stamina in the end because that is now five out of the six games that have gone to the tenth end or beyond and on ice as keen as it is here, and as swingy, there is an awful lot of sweeping to be done.

Eve Muirhead is not the only one to be timed-out this week. This morning Belarus started the last end against Lithuania with approximately three minutes on the clock! Ironically, although they were five down at the time, they were lying three when the clock stopped. A quick shrug of the shoulders and a handshake finished the game. It was pretty obvious earlier that they would struggle unless they sped up but that did not appear to be a worry for them and the inevitable happened!

All the results and standings can be found here.

Top: Team England. L-R Alan MacDougall, Andrew Reed, Andrew Woolston, Tom Jaeggi. Photo © Leslie Ingram-Brown

The B Arena

The B arena at a European Championships has its own atmosphere away from the glitz and glamour of the A arena and, as the week progresses, a little community establishes itself therein. Some in the past have been further away than others so that it felt like a different competition – last year’s train ride down the mountain from Champery was probably the most extreme, but the tram ride in Basel and the journey up from the Linx Arena beside the beach to the Curl Aberdeen club were not atypical. In fact is not since 2007 in Fussen that it has been possible to easily see both A and B groups at the same time.

Here in Moscow it is probably a good five minute walk between them but it is all indoors as you wander the corridors of this massive building. We are located in an ice hockey rink though there is very little spectator space so I imagine it is either mainly used for practice or for minor league games. The changing rooms are well fitted and each small bay in the locker room has a lockable box for valuables though not for our use this week. The ice crew is led by Jurgen Larsson and the umpires by Dor Borthwick and both have long days with four sessions beginning at 0800 and finishing at about 2300.

Security is everywhere and without the right pass you do not get anywhere – even if you have been going past the same man every day I can see that there would be a 'Niet' for you if you ever appeared without one – pins are a great bargaining tool of course. A players’ restaurant is open from 0900 to 2100 with hot food, including breakfast, on offer all day.

At the end of a long four game day for the coaches yesterday our women's team gave us an additional present by going to an extra end against Finland! This was a great game and a super fightback from the team who had lost a three at the first end against probably the strongest team in the B Group. Unfortunately Anna’s last draw just refused to turn enough and the Finnish skip was able to tap it back for victory to stretch their unbeaten run to four games (now five after a straightforward win over Slovakia this morning).

Poland are probably the surprise of the Group. The current Polish junior team came through from the C Group after last year’s exclusion of Poland for non payment of subscriptions and have gone four games undefeated including a win over the experienced Hungarians. Their one flaw is possibly their commitment to throwing big weight takeouts which leave little room for error. [Having written this before our ladies played Poland I have now been hoist by own petard as it was only their ability to throw such a big weight that enabled Poland to beat England with a high speed tick-out at the last end this morning!].

After yesterday’s close encounter with Estonia, who also took Netherlands to an extra end later in the day, the England men won a fairly comfortable game against Belgium who had to bring on their alternate after threeends. The game was also notable for the first coach interaction call from an England team when yours truly had to go down and give Alan MacDougall some advice – not something I ever expected to see written down in black and white! So that is three out of three for England with Ireland also undefeated in that group. In the other group it is Hungary who lead the way with four wins out of four.

Top: The B Arena in the Megasport Complex.
Above: John on the coaches' bench.
Photos © Leslie Ingram-Brown

Day 2 in Moscow

Rodger Schmidt was European Champion for Germany in 1985 and also took Russ Howard to the last end in the World Final in Vancouver in 1987. Since then he has plied his trade as a coach to the World at large including the Czech Republic (1999-2000), Italy (2000-2007) and the USA (2010 Olympic Games). Since 2007 he has been working with the Austrian teams and is sitting next to me as we watch our respective women’s teams in action against each other. (His ex-teammate, Johnny Jahr, is making a comeback at this level in the A Group upstairs.)

As well as sharing the bench we seem to be stalking each other as we both have similar responsibilities for our small nations, with two teams to coach, and the timetable for a regular day here is 0800 men’s game, 1200 women’s game, 1600 men’s game and 2000 women’s game! When you realise that practice begins half an hour before each game you can see that the time for eating is fairly restricted. Add in the fact that England's men had to play an extra end this morning before finally beating Estonia and you can see why healthy eating and the European Championships are kind of mutually exclusive! Thank goodness for time clocks, but you sometimes pray for a six end game, as long as your team is on the winning side of course! Last night those prayers were answered when, at almost exactly the same time as I was posting yesterday’s blog, Anna Fowler played a delicate backring weight tap back to collect a six against Ireland who then gave up after seven ends with England winning 14-3.

This morning’s game for the men against Estonia seemed to be ours all the way. We scored six singles, including three steals, and headed into the last end 6-4 up. But we lost two against the hammer and then in the extra it required a cold draw to the button by Alan MacDougall to put away the Estonians who had beaten us last year in Champery.

By the way, the 'High-tech' A4 flip chart scorecards (see Blog 1) go up to 29 per side! I think they must have looked at the record books and found that the highest score in International Competition history was 28-3 and just added one! Everything is bigger and better in Russia!

Except the service! When a '4 star' hotel takes an hour to prepare a pizza at 11pm and it then arrives in a box 20 minutes after the waiter has mysteriously dashed out, one does wonder how they ever got a man in space!

Moscow: View from the B Arena

Well sorry, actually not a view as I forgot the lead which would have downloaded pictures from my phone, so you will have to do with a 1000 words instead ...

English teams arrived safely on Thursday from their various connecting points, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Stockholm - geography determined that teams should arrive at Sheremetyevo Airport in the North rather than the other one in the South. Problem is that only Aeroflot fly directly to Sheremetyevo from London and fears, possibly unjustified, of Aeroflot’s reputation led to the option of changing flights midway - and it was slightly cheaper.

I travelled out on Friday, in the company of ECA President Alison Arthur, and got to Copenhagen no problem, only to find that the flight to Moscow had been cancelled for technical reasons and we would have to travel via Stockholm, but we had to wait over two hours! Eventually arrived four hours later in Moscow than expected just in time for the opening banquet. But at least our luggage arrived in spite of the changed itinerary, unlike that of WCF President Kate Caithness which got lost somewhere in Schiphol on her way here.

And so to the Stadium on Saturday morning. A well organised and pleasantly short opening ceremony. This is an enormous building and the B Arena is in the basement - but it is a light airy rink and very similar to curling rinks elsewhere, though it is a hockey rink in everyday life.

Ice is good - as fifth player for the men’s team I threw a few stones in the practice session this morning before the first game against Poland which was won 9-2. And with the ladies winning 6-4 against Spain in their first outing it has been a successful day so far for England. Currently they are on against Ireland and leading 6-0 and so more news in a tomorrow’s blog.

Footnote – all mod cons here in the B arena with flat screen electronic scoreboards – only problem is that they are only at one end below the coaches bench and so invisible to those who matter! So for this session the latest Russian technology has appeared at the far end. Red and yellow coloured A4 pads with numbers to be turned over as the game progresses – no line scores obviously but sufficient for what is needed!

Toothy Travails

The extra spare time in my life forced upon me by Her Majesty’s Civil Service has been put to good use in recent weeks. Before my last blog from the Welsh Bonspiel I took a day trip over to the European Mixed. There can be very few curling rinks which are 20 minutes walk from a major airport but in Copenhagen there is the five sheet Taarnby rink which has recently been expanded by two extra sheets which were finished just in time for the European Mixed at the beginning of October. In addition the high pitched roof on the extension allows for the inclusion of a large function suite at first floor level, which in future plans will have a glass wall overlooking the main rink. Should be spectacular.

The European Mixed is the first of three international championships being held there this season – the European Juniors in January and the World Seniors in April are the others, and it is remarkable how a relatively small club manages to produce the funding and the organisation to run these events. The main promoter is Johannes Jensen and one of the features of the Taarnby rink is the display cases full of just a part of his collection of curling memorabilia.
I intend to repeat my day trip with a visit to the European Juniors and probably the Seniors as well - £45 return from Stansted with Easyjet is less than most internal flights in the UK!

At the Mixed I must admit to getting confused as to which event I was attending – there were juniors, seniors and all ages participating and when you have seen people like Harry Lill of Estonia playing in Europeans as well as the Juniors and now the Mixed, just a quick glimpse on to the ice can be disconcerting.

I am currently in Scotland as I write having just played in the Braehead Mixed Doubles and will be heading off to Stranraer tomorrow to play in the Preston Club’s I’Anson Trophy. There is a full entry of sixteen teams with many new curlers about to enjoy the Stranraer experience for the first time.

It was only my second MD competition (after the English Championships in 2007) and my partner, Dawn Watson’s, first. The rules of MD are a little bit different and I made a faux pas in our first game when I thought that the winning side placed the stones for the next end when of course it is the losing side (as you all knew). So this meant that we had to replay the second end and my apologies to our opponents, Angus Shearer and Nicola Evans who went on to win the best under 25 prize in spite of losing to us.

It was just one of two wins for us in the competition which was two evenings of intense curling – three games per night, five end games for the first four, and then two six end games. If you are throwing the middle set of 3 stones in the team, and getting up to sweep those stones as well, it is a very good work out for your curling muscles. It was great to see so many juniors playing and also the two wheelchair teams.

So those are the travels – the travails are around the European Championships in Moscow. As I said to somebody recently, how did they manage to put a man in space! Maybe that is unfair and it is just cultural differences, but the whole issue of getting a visa has been remarkably stressful and there are still some of my players without them just two weeks before they go.

To summarise - the players were not allowed to apply for their visas before the 1st November – already a tight schedule. To apply for your visa you had first of all to receive a letter from the organising committee inviting you to play in the Championships. The website said that, obviously, this had to done before doing your visa application and a form was provided on the website to supply information about your passport number etc. So in late August / early September I encouraged our players to apply for their letters so they would have them in plenty of time to apply for their visa after 1st November.

Time went on and nothing had arrived in mid to late October and so emails started flying. What transpired was that none of the players’ details were in Russia – and then we got an email in late October saying that we would get on better if we applied for the letters as a group!

Anyway, by this time one of our players was flying off to South Korea and would not be back until late November and another was on business in Europe and would have to apply via the consulate in The Hague! Eventually, after re-submitting the details, the letters arrived last week and visits to Russian consulates in London and Edinburgh (and The Hague) are being undertaken.

A number of questions could be asked – why so late for the players to apply for visas as they are the most important people in the competition? What happened to the missing data? Why was the website not clearer about applying as a group if it was that critical?

And then yesterday an email arrived saying that if players wanted to use official transport between hotel and the arena it would cost them £84 for the week. Ours are walking!

And then there are the juniors................but that is another story!

Sorry for being Mr Grumpy but every day my inbox is full of emails – how the hell did I ever manage when I was working!

Hopefully my travels will continue with my trip to Moscow in early December and my travails will lessen as the weeks pass. Fingers crossed.

Top photo is of John puzzling over strategy at the Braehead Open Mixed Doubles. Above is his partner in that event, Dawn Watson. Photos © Skip Cottage.