From the Coaches' Bench

I have now been to 19 European Championships as competitor, coach, representative and spectator in places as far and near as Ornskoldsvijk and Sofia, Kirkcaldy and Copenhagen and each has had its good and bad points and many have had their problems. I've been to some places I will probably never visit again (the aforementioned 'Ovik') and to others where I have later returned to enjoy a holiday (Grindelwald).

I have stayed in some grand hotels and in some very basic ones, eaten expensive meals and some ropey hot dogs and burgers, spent up to 4 hours in a bus to get from various airports and sat on a variety of coaches' benches either freezing to death (Sofia) or watching in luxury from behind the glass (Karlstad).

But I have never been anywhere that could only offer me black coffee before (there was no milk available - not just once but the next day as well)!!!! Or where a plate of pasta cost over £30. But here we are in Stavanger, oil capital of Norway, and I suppose those who remember the days when Aberdeen was the most expensive place to live in Britain will know what I am talking about.

The stadium here is vast - an indoor speed skating venue so that there is room to have the two ice pads for the A and B Groups in one place, separated just by the scaffolding supporting the A Group coaching, media and TV scaffolding - nicely draped for the A side but exposing the bare scaffolding poles to us here on the B side (see picture below). The curling sheet in the foreground is for the public to have a go.

As usual it is a full programme of games here with 28 nations represented, 26 in the men's competition and 20 in the women's. It is a first appearance in the main Championships by the Romanian men and the Slovenian women who came up through the C Group Championships played recently in Copenhagen.The other quailifiers from that competition were the Welsh men and the Belarusian women who had both been relegated last year.

Although the two ice pads are back to back there is not a great deal of noise filtering through from one to the other unless Andrea Schopp or Thomas Ulsrud is in full bellow setting.

However the standard of the catering in the stadium leaves much to be desired, especially considering it is a purpose built sports venue. There is a small cafe which was the venue of my milk shortage episode mentioned earlier and currently they are unable to produce any hot water for a cup of tea owing to an inoperative water boiler - the idea of boiling a kettle seems alien to them!! (problem has been resolved as just been and got a cuppa).

There is a standard menu of sandwiches, lasagne or chicken kebabs and one dish of the day which has apparently been variable in quality. The lasagne I had was tepid although full of meat. I presume it is getting better as some are still eating there but then people eat in Motorway service area cafes also because they have no choice!

It is funny however, that such a pattern has been repeated many times over the years- it is almost as if the venues have been unprepared for the demand and it is not until halfway through the week that the situation is resolved. The life saver here has been the hot dog caravan which sits next to the Group B ice pad and did a roaring trade in hot dogs last night.

Finally for this short introduction to Stavanger a couple of pictures of the equipment the Norwegian edition of Top Gear is developing for their Christmas special.

Greenacres International Bonspiel

Greenacres has been a very "International" place these last few weeks - they had the Welsh International Bonspiel followed by the European Senior Invitation Curling Championships (or ESICC to its close friends) and then last weekend it was the Greenacres International Bonspiel.

When many of the teams entered for the weekend it was going to be the Gormac as it has been for a number of years, but by the time we got to the rink on Friday the Gormac tag had been dropped (for reasons I am not necessarily able to talk about) and it was the G.I.B..

The International moniker was still relevant as there were 3 teams from England entered, plus the Irish team fresh back from the European C Division at Taarnby in Denmark.

With just 10 teams in total a straight 4-game Schenkel was played and then the top 2 teams played off for first prize and the next two for 3rd prize.

(I was going to blog a detailed account of the games but I cannot find my results sheet just at the moment - first rule of blogging - don't begin to write until you are sure you have all the necessary information ready!!!)

Going into the 4th session Alan MacDougall's England Champions were undefeated and would play Graeme Adam who was on 4 points and 14 ends. Graham Shedden (4 and 13) played James Dixon (4 and 12) and Tony Tierney (4 and 12) played Drew Gemmell (4 and 10) and the top 4 teams would come out of those 3 games. Other contestants were Alan Mitchell and Matthew McConnell (2 points) and Fergus Corbett and  Anna Fowler (0 points).

The first game to finish was the MacDougall - Adam game which Graeme won so that both teams ended with 6 points and 18 ends. By this time none of the other teams were going to be able to match that number of ends and so they would meet again in the final an hour later. The decision on who would play the 3/4 final then  came down to who would win the other games between the teams with 4 points. In the Dixon - Sheddon game the former had opened out a 6-2 lead to be pegged back at the 7th when Shedden took a two. The Dixon team then contrived to play the 8th end so badly that Shedden was lying 5 when James came to play his last stone - but a straightforward nose hit reduced that to 2 and the win went to Dixon by 6-5. The Tierney - Gemmell also went to the last stone before Gemmell squeezed through by 7-5.

And so to the finals - Alan MacDougall knew he would have to leave early to catch a plane back to London and he and Graeme romped through the first 5 ends before Alan left with his team losing. That situation did not change and so Graeme Adam, Drew Howie, Stuart Naismith and Jean Lesperance won the Greenaces International Bonspiel. Runners-up were Alan MacDougall, Andrew Reed, John Sharp and Tom Jaeggi, while Andrew Woolston also played in two of the games.

In the 3/4 final the James Dixon team never seemed to get into the game and Drew Gemmell's team, skipped in this game by Alec Wilson, won fairly easily by 11-5.

So a good weekend all round on the ice for those who participated - hopefully there will be more entries again next year and we can get back to the 24-team fields of the Gormac in the past.

I'M BACK - I have been away for too long

Wow is all I can say - is it really January since I last posted on this blog - so much has happened since then - if you have found me again then please stick around as I hope to post more regularly again. And tell your friends as they may have forgotten all about me too.

Where to begin is the first question - well I should have more time as I gave up being ECA secretary back at the AGM in May - the new secretary is Nigel Patrick and we also have a new ECA President in Tommy Campbell - we wish them all the best. I am still treasurer of the ECA and also Competitions' Convenor and I have a new role in curling - I have been elected onto the WCF Commission on Competitions and Rules - having been proposed by the ECA, I was accepted and so, along with Hew Chalmers (SCO), Mark Swandby (USA), Danny Lamoureaux (CAN), Karel Kubeska (CZE) and Paul Ahlgren (SWE) under the chairmanship of WCF President, Kate Caithness and Competitions' Director, Keith Wendorf, we will be looking at the way forward for the sport after the Sochi Olympics - are there any rule changes that should be made or are there any competitions we should add or drop from our programme? Look out for more information coming through in the future.

We held our first meeting in Copenhagen in September at the WCF Congress and will be meeting again at the Women's Worlds in Canada in March.

The New Season

Closer to home the season has begun and for me there have already been 4 trips up to Scotland!! Firstly I drove up to support the English team in the European Mixed at Murrayfield where the team of John Sharp, Lorna Rettig, Nigel Patrick and Alison Hemmings won 3 and lost 4 games to finish midfield in their group. I was also supporting two of my team who play with me in the I'Anson Trophy at Stranraer - Dawn Watson who was playing for Wales and Louise Kerr who was in the Irish team. And also of course the Scottish team which included a regular at Fenton's, Karen Barthelemy.

Two weeks later I drove up with our Junior Women's team to the first Asham Under-21 Slam event at Kinross which was looking bright and sparkling after its takeover by the local curlers following a lot of hard work. The girls did very well to win 2 and peel one of their games and narrowly lost out on qualifying for the semi-final - that would have been good to see - an un-funded team from England doing better than some of the well-funded Scottish Academy teams. That might have been a difficult one for  Brad Askew, the Scottish Performance Coach to explain!!

Back home for just long enough to change my clothes and do a few hours work to help pay for the diesel, and it was back up to Murrayfield for the first ECA event of the season - the Duncan Stewart Trophy which is open to all ECA members and where teams are selected just before the first game. We had 4 teams this year and with some people playing just one of the days we had a total of 19 participants including a few playing in their first ECA event.

As can be seen in the photo on The View From the Hack blog, I was fortunate to win it helped by Alison Barr, Judith Dixon and Andrew Woolston (and Ian Paxton on the Saturday). It did not look like it at the start of the weekend - losing a 4 in the first end of the first game and then another single in the second end does not normally lead to a trophy, but we plugged away - came back to win the first game 7-6 and the second one by 7-4. With the top two teams qualifying for the final and those teams already identified after the first two games (two teams had 2 wins and two teams had 0), we then played new President Tommy Campbell twice on the Sunday - a friendly peel at 3-3 after 6 ends followed by a 7-4 victory in the Final.

A couple of weeks at home (including a win in a game at Fenton's in the league) before it was back up in atrocious weather for the Welsh International Bonspiel sponsored yet again by Glenfarclas. Things had gone badly even before I left when my lead player, Jean Robinson, contracted shingles and had to pull out - but my first message for help yielded a result and Alison Barr, who had played with me in Edinburgh, was available for all but one game.

I had a good feeling nevertheless about the weekend ahead in spite of also losing my regular third, Dawn Watson, who had defected to the Dark Side (well Wales). The last time my new third, Lana Watson (no relation), had played with me in the Welsh we had been undefeated, but only won the B Final, as a team we had peeled with qualified for the A Final, also undefeated, having won one more end than us over the 4 games. So there was unfinished business there. My regular second, Donald Forbes, played with me again for the 10th time in 11 years and the only time he had been unable to play, we had won the Bonspiel - yet more unfinished business. And having been undefeated in Edinburgh just two weeks previously with Alison in my team, the omens were good.

And then they began to look a little shaky as, without the hammer, we lost a 3 in the first end of the first game - but had not something similar happened in Edinburgh?? I am glad to say that we fought our way back into the game to be peels going into the last end where we were fortunate to steal a single to beat Margaret Meikle by 6-5. And it happened in the next game again - lose the toss and lose a 3 at the first end, and the next game - lose the toss and lose a 2 in the first end - but on both occasions we fought back to win, beating Laura Beever 11-6 and Gus Storrie 7-5.

So there we were sitting on top of the section with a nice rest before Sunday when we would surely be playing Graeme Adam who had come back from a first game loss to win the next two games, the second of those by 18-0 and winning all 8 ends - he was second in the table and we had not played him - but the Schenkel system is strange at times and it depends how the organisers use it to avoid duplicate games. This time if we played Graeme and the other games were played as the system required there would be a duplicate game being played and so we ended up playing Andrew Woolston, the holder, instead - not sure which was the worse option for us!!!

This was the game Alison could not play and we won the toss, won the first end and lost the game!!! And what a finish there was. I will try to explain as simply as possible - Graeme Adam was playing Gus Storrie and whoever won that game would qualify for a final on 6 points. As I was also on 6 points but losing to Andrew Woolston it would come down to ends - I had 15 before the start of the game, Graeme had 15 and Gus had 11. As the endgame played out with me losing it became apparent that if Graeme won then he would go to A, I would go to B, but if Gus won I would go to A and he would go to B with Graeme out. Going into the last end they were peeled. Hold it there.

Meanwhile, Andrew Woolston had peeled with Laura Beever the previous day and they were both on 3 points - if they both won then whichever had the more ends would go above whichever of Gus and Graeme lost and would qualify for the C Final. Laura finished her game first and Andrew then knew that he needed to win the last end against me to finish above her. He was leading me 6-2 - but I was lying (thus Laura would qualify) but I had a slim chance with my last stone to get the 4 to peel the game and guarantee myself a final even if Graeme beat Gus. As I began to consider my options for my last stone, Graeme threw his last stone on the other sheet and ........it was a measure - so I still had to try for the 4 as I could not really hang around waiting for the measure - I had strung it out enough already!!

In the end my bid for the 4 and the peel failed to come off  but.........Gus won the measure and I was safely in the A Final and Gus was in the B while Graeme was out. Meanwhile in going for the 4 I had actually taken my own shot out giving Andrew the end and pushing him into the C Final above Laura - but only just - they had the same number of points, ends scored and shots scored and it went down to the shots up before Andrew broke the tie!

The other group was won by Ken Horton, who had a strong English contingent in his team. Hugh Stewart was second and Adrian Meikle was third.

In the idle moments before the Finals began it struck me that the Welsh International Bonspiel was really living up to its name this year - of the 24 players in the 3 finals, 17of them had at one time played for their country and all 4 Home Nations were represented. The full list:

John Brown (England Men and Senior Men)
Lana Watson (England Women and Mixed)
Alison Barr (England Senior Women)
Ken Horton (Scotland Junior Men, Men and Senior Men)
Lorna Rettig (England Women, Mixed and Mixed Doubles)
Ben Fowler (England Junior Men and Mixed Doubles)
Liz Horton (Scotland Senior Women)
Hugh Stewart (Scotland Senior Men)
Carolyn Hibberd (Ireland Women and Senior Women)
Jim Stirling (Scotland Senior Men)
Gus Storrie (Scotland Senior Men)
Adrian Meikle (Wales Men and Mixed)
Dawn Watson (Wales Mixed)
Andy Tanner (Wales Men and Mixed)
Andy Woolston (Wales Junior Men and England Men and Mixed)
Lesley Gregory (Wales Women and Mixed)
Martin Gregory (Wales Mixed)

Into the A Final then against my old team mate from 4x years ago, Ken Horton - usual scenario - lose the toss, lose the first end - but this time it was the third end as we blanked the first two - a situation repeated next door in the C Final between Adrian and Andrew. A quick reply with a 3 at the 4th end and then it was back to 4-4 after 6 - with last stone I was only able to take a 1 at the 7th and things looked to be against us but we were able to steal the 8th for a famous 6-4 victory.

Hugh Stewart won the B Final against Gus Storrie and Adrian Meikle beat Andrew Woolston in the C Final.

And then here we are  back home again - a weekend of family stuff and then back North for the next two weekends - to Greenacres for the tournament formerly known as the Gormac (where I am subbing for an injured player) and then to Stranraer for the I'Anson before 8 days in Stavanger at the Europeans. Two trophies in two weekends so far - can it continue - keep watching for further updates!!

Wales' Grand Slam at 4 Nations

In the early years of the 4 Nations Wales always struggled to win trophies, as a grand tally of just 3 out of 24  in 8 years demonstrates. Things turned around in 2008 when they won their first grand slam of all three  for which they compete - the Kay Trophy v England, the Welsh Stone v Scotland and the Meikle Trophy v Ireland.Since then they have always collected at least one every year until this year they got their second grand slam with two substantial victories over Scotland (46-18) and England (33-19) and a closer one over Ireland (27-24).

England won twice - beating Ireland 25-24 and their men defeating Scotland 58-45 while Ireland beat Scotland 24-22 and the Scottish women won their country's only trophy by defeating the English women in the Connie Miller by 25-8.

Snowfall in the South meant that some of the English team were unable to travel and this affected their women's teams in particular. In addition the Welsh were also short and both teams were helped out by local curlers, reflecting the spirit in which these games are played.

FINAL RESULTS

Connie Miller Trophy (England v Scotland women)

Debbie Hutcheon 4 Gail Munro 8
Debbie Hutcheon 4 Gail Munro 17

Tom Ballantyne Trophy (England v Scotland men)

John Brown 10 Alan Russell 8
John Sharp 4 John Paul 7
Kerr Alexander 5 Alan Durno 7
Tommy Campbell 8 David Jones 3
Alastair Fyfe 7 Alan Durno 8
John Brown 9 James Carswell 4
John Sharp 9 David Jones 4
Michael Sutherland 6 Alan Russell 4

Kay Trophy (England v Wales)

Doug Andrews 7 Andy Tanner 12
Alastair Fyfe 6 Hugh Meikle 6
Michael Sutherland 3 Andy Tanner 8
Debbie Hutcheon 3 Lesley Gregory 7

Turnbull Trophy (England v Ireland)

John Sharp 7 Bill Gray 5
John Brown 7 David Whyte 7
John Brown 3 Peter Wilson 10
Alison Barr 8 Marie O'Kane 2

Welsh Stone (Scotland v Wales)

Euan Lawrence 1 Andy Tanner 12
Robin Aitken 7 Adrian Meikle 9
Hazel Swankie 7 Laura Beever 7
Alan Durno 3 James Pougher 18

Marshall Millennium Trophy (Scotland v Ireland)

Kate Adams 7 Fiona Turnbull 6
Euan Lawrence 5 Bill Gray 8
Euan Lawrence 8 Bill Gray 5
Robin Aitken 2 Neil Fyfe 5

Meikle Trophy (Wales v Ireland)

Lesley Gregory 6 Neil Fyfe 8
Adrian Meikle 7 Peter Wilson 6
Lesley Gregory 7 Fiona Turnbull 4
Adrian Meikle 7 Jim Winning 6

Will they ever win one??

A perplexing title perhaps but see if you can guess who we are talking about here.

They entered this competition in 2003 and have played 52 games since then without winning one. They have lost 13 of those games without scoring a shot and have a total shots aggregate of 83 for and 734 against. This year for the first time they scored more than 4 shots in a game in what was probably their best year to date as they scored 19 shots over 8 games and scored in every one of them. There is a job out there for somebody to go and coach this team because they keep coming back for more and if they are that keen we need to help them improve.

Their male equivalent entered the competition in 2003 and won their first game - but have not won any since - that is 58 successive losses but they have come much closer to that elusive win having lost one of those games at an extra end and a few others by just one shot.

You have to admire the way in which these teams keep returning to participate in the World B (2002-2004) / Pacific Asia Junior Championships (2005 onwards) - we are of course talking about Team Australia - we salute you for your perseverance and just wish we could get down under to help you out and find you decent curling ice to play on.

Is there a volunteer out there who fancies a winter in Australia? I am sure the Australian Curling Association would love to hear from you.

Oh and the identity of the team which the Australian boys beat in that first game - that would be Team Wales!!

Tidying up the loose ends in Prague

So here we are at the last day of the EJCC and after yesterday's confusing and exciting day what did we end up with??

GIRLS - Fairly straightforward here eventually: Germany beat Estonia, Hungary beat Latvia and Denmark beat Poland in the last round robin games which means that the semi-finals will be Germany v Hungary and Italy v Denmark.

BOYS - Estonia beat Austria 5-4 in the last round robin game which meant that they finiahed tied on 4-1 with each other and with Netherlands - Netherlands finished top with the best DSC and Estonia and Austria had to meet again in a tie breaker which went to an extra end before Estonia repeated their victory, this time by 6-5.

In the other section Italy beat Turkey 5-3 which meant they tied for second behind unbeaten Denmark and meant that they also had to replay their game this morning to decide who was second - Italy had beaten Turkey and had the better DSC but had to do it all again and this they did by 7-2 in just 6 ends.

So the semi-finals will be Netherlands v Italy and Denmark v Estonia.

Happy New Year from Prague (continued)

In the last blog I began talking about the girls competition - and just to remind you and to continue the story - here is what I said before:

GIRLS - There are 12 teams entered in the EJCC, a rise of 3 since last year and only the second time that the numbers have been above 10 since 2005 and 2 sections have been required. The teams playing are from Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey. Italy won last year with an undefeated 9-0 record but came straight back down in Ostersund last year. Only one team was relegated as Russia, as hosts, are already in the WJCC, having finished 3rd last year.

Germany and Poland have been ever present in the EJCC since 2005 although Germany has qualified twice from it but been relegated straight back down again. Of the teams that have previously qualified from the EJCC only Italy and Germany are here this week and, as with the boys, they are both in the same section.

There is one game left in the girls draw - at 1830 UK time tonight. In Section WA Italy suffered their first defeat at the hands of unbeaten Germany and are finished their round robin games on a 4-1 record. Germany are undefeated on 4-0 and tonight face Estonia who are on 3-1 and so must win to stay in the competition. It would appear to be a Germany, Italy one-two in this section but should Estonia pull off the shock win then it would go down to the DSC results to decide ranking.

Italy have finished with a DSC of 39.5 which is currently better than either Germany (83.1)or Estonia (50.1), though both could still improve. The Germans will not be able to better either of the other 2 even if they draw the button and so would inevitably be in the tie break for second position if they lose - so it looks like a must win for Germany to save themselves the worry of a tie-breaker.

In Section WB, England had a great chance to seal top slot this morning when skip, Hetty Garnier played another superb draw to the edge of the button which gave her an average that neither Denmark or Hungary, who were tied with England could beat. However a poor performance by the English girls saw them lose to Turkey who joined them on 3-2.

Tonight Denmark and Hungary who are both on 3-1 play Poland and Latvia respectively and if they both win then they will be 1st and 2nd respectively. Even if Hungary lose they will be ranked second because they beat both Turkey and England, and so a defeat for Denmark is what England and Turkey must hope for. And having written that I am now not sure if that would be the case or would Hungary have to play whichever of the other two has the better DSC (and that would be England). We shall know at 9.30 tonight when all the games are finished.

My predictions are for Denmark and Hungary to both win and finish 1st and 2nd,  and the semi-finals to be Germany v Hungary and Italy v Denmark.

BOYS UPDATE

Meanwhile back with the boys and the games that are ongoing at the moment - the Austria-Estonia game on which much depends - see last post -  is finely balanced at 3-2 to Austria after 5 ends while in the other crucial game in the other section Italy lead Turkey 4-3 after 6 ends. If Italy win they would be tied for second place with Turkey after the round robin but would be ranked second as they will have won their round-robin game. I am unclear however if this means that there will be a tie-breaker or not.

More later.