The Sulwath Open

Last weekend Team Hedge and Lawn Garden Services made the long trip down to Dumfries to participate in the Sulwath Open. This was the first time that the team had ever competed in this event but we decided to give it a go as the Scottish Qualifiers are going to be held there in January.

Because we are tight, we have stayed with the same team shirts as last year. Due to our previous seasons smock tops being almost useless, we gave Colin the responsibility to find some Team Edwards hoodies. He came through for us and delivered them ready for our first game.

New hoodies

In our first game of the season we were lined up against Martin Lill from Estonia. Unfortunately for them, they only managed to field one player so we got the victory by default. With the sheet going spare we decided to have a team practice with the main goal to boost Colin's confidence following his two awful attempts at the 'Trick Shot Challenge'. If you have not yet had a look at the video, it is on the blog post prior to this one. For the practice, we allowed Harri Lill from Team Estonia to join in with us, which in retrospect, was not a very good idea.

This is how our group games panned out with a short description of each game

Win 6-0 v Martin Lill. We didn't miss a shot.
Loss 4-3 v Kyle Smith. Gave up a 2 in the 7th and a steal in the 8th.
Win 6-2 v Alan Mitchell. Nothing of note.
Win 13-5 v Ross Whyte. We needed the ends.

We (unjustifiably) topped the table following those performances which may have been assisted quite heavily by the 6 end boost from the first game.

This lined us up against Duncan Gracie and Team Curl One Out in the Quarter Finals on Saturday evening. There was a lot of pressure on John, Scott and Colin to perform in this game as David had very kindly returned to us following his outstanding performances with Team COO over the summer. The game was closer than the scoreline makes out, but we managed to win 7-3.

On Saturday evening the ice rink hosted an on-ice remote control car race which was open to anyone who wanted to sign up. The challenge involved a practice lap followed by a timed lap. Everyone from Team Edwards took part but the stand out performance came from John Penny. Previously JP has not come across as extremely proficient in racing based activities and his practice lap echoed those performances. John managed to jump the track and get the controller jammed on maximum acceleration which led to the very expensive remote control car to crash head on at full speed into the ice rink wall. For the second lap John somehow managed to find some talent posted the fastest lap time of the competition. This pushed Graham Shedden into second. Graham did not like that so he challenged John to a 1v1 dual to see who was in fact the best. After 5 minutes of Graham going the wrong way and being lapped by John it was clear JP had won. There were then claims that Graham had a faulty controller but those were soon silenced when the pair switched controllers and the exact same thing happened!

Throughout Saturday evening Team Edwards sampled some of the drinks provided by Sulwath Brewers. Dave was a fan of Galloway Gold and ordered a 5 litre keg which he picked up on Sunday morning.

Dave's Beer

The semi final on Sunday morning was against Martin Lill from Estonia, but unfortunately this time they showed up. It was a pretty tight game and we managed to achieve a small lead coming towards the end of the game. In the 8th end we were 2 up without hammer and due to some truly horrific peeling from both Scott and John, we managed to give up a 3 to lose 6-5. Team Estonia went on to win the tournament and the Braehead Open this weekend. Congratulations, but that is the last time we are ever letting someone practice with us!

Over the weekend we were once again hosted by the Edwards family and were once again extremely well fed! Thanks very much to Meg.

Next up on the Scottish Curling Tour is the Forfar Open on 11-13 October.

As Scott is now Aberdeen based, Scott and Dave will be able to practice together more often. Today was the first time this happened. Having heard that Kerr Drummond and Dave had a season long game last year, Scott and Dave decided to start one. Today's part of the season long game started very well for Scott with the line score going as follows.

Scott 2 2 5 0 4 0 2 - 15
Dave 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 - 4

It was a dominant performance from a clearly superior player. The frequency of reports from this game will depend on how well Scott is doing.

Cheers
Team Edwards
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Summer Training

Team Hedge & Lawn Garden Services started their summer training yesterday at Curl Aberdeen. Unfortunately, the owner and proprietor of Hedge & Lawn Garden Services, Colin Campbell, was unable to attend the full training day as he was once again up to his neck in bush.

He did make a small appearance towards the end of the training session for the "Team Hedge & Lawn Garden Services Trick Shot Challenge". Make sure you watch until the end to view his impressive attempts.

Thanks to Pye for all of the video editing.

So we are heading down to Dumfries tomorrow morning where we have already been awarded our first victory due to our Estonian opponents not arriving until 3 hours after the first game has finished.

If we keep this up, no one can stop us!

Our first game where we will actually get some ice time will be 7.30pm on Friday evening against whomever the mighty Schenkel decides.

Cheers
Team Edwards
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End of an Era

Last month, Dave played in the Stirling Summer Skins with Team Curl One Out. They managed to scrape through the group stages before running into the might of Team Greg Drummond in the quarter final. Greg's team were firing well and ranked No.1 after the group stages. This was of no surprise as Greg's team of pros had had many hours of summer training under their belt. Team COO having had no ice time in several months only made it through to the quarter final stages after skinning Logan Gray in their last group game.

With some chat about the prospect of the two teams meeting prior to the tournament on Twitter, I think both teams were eager to come out on top. We are unsure as to how the game played out, but apparently, Greg's team were on the wrong end of very one sided spanking, according to Kenny.

Prior the final, Team COO ploughed through Hannah Flemming in the semis, before meeting Michael Goodfellow's international rink to play for the championship. Team COO some how came out winners and were crowned champions of the Stirling Skins. Congratulations.

The champs

The good times didn't last for long. Team Edwards have some bad news.

A couple days after the Stirling Skins; John, Colin and Scott received this disappointing email from Dave.

David Edwards "After my heroics with the boys at the (Stirling Skins) I'm moving onto bigger and better things.............have a good season."

So cold. This was obviously a blow to everyone on the team, and I am sure, to our hoards fans.

It took about a week for Dave to realise the logistics that were involved with his new team. He would either have to have Kenny sweeping for him or have Kenny skipping and telling him what to do. So obviously, with only those two horrendous options available to him, he came crawling back to John, Colin and Scott with his tail between his legs. 

With the team line-up now finalised, we are looking towards our first event of the season. We are starting out with the Dumfries Ice Bowl Open which on 20th-22nd September. Our first game is against the Estonian national team, Martin Lill. 

This is how our section rounds out with the top 5 advancing to the playoff stages.

David Edwards

Kyle Smith

Scott Robertson

Ross Whyte

Cameron Bryce

Martin Lill

Maggie Wilson

Alan Mitchell

The event website and full draw is HERE. 

We have never played in this event before but we thought we would give it a try as the Scottish Playdowns will be making a visit to rink early next year. Another large factor that is drawing us to this tournament is the prospect of being hosted by Meg Edwards again. The last time the team stayed at the Edwards residence, we all left a solid 4 kilos heavier. Looking forward to the feed!

But before all this we have our intensive on ice summer training programme start and adhere to.

Our on ice summer training programme will commence on the 18th September and will wind down around the 19th September just in time to be in peak performance for Dumfries. This will take place in Curl Aberdeen and the team will be around to sign any autographs. 

That is all

Team Edwards

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