Lockerbie Superspiel 2013

Last weekend we were competing in the Lockerbie Superspiel without usual 3rd, John Penny. For this weekend only, Scott and Colin got promotions to play the dizzy heights of 3rd and 2nd respectively. In at lead we recruited a child by the name of Ross Whyte. Dave was not confident that Scott had the suitable experience, skill or focus to take control of the head when Dave was playing, so this was Ross' responsibility for the weekend which the wee man managed very well.

Scott and Dave left Aberdeen at around 12.30pm for our first game at 4pm against Ross McCleary in Lockerbie. This was really tight. The sat nav in Dave's car estimated an arrival time throughout the journey. When we left Aberdeen, the estimation was 3.56pm. By the time we had hit Stirling, Dave had managed to shave off 11 minutes and we had a solid 15 minutes in the bank to get warmed up and changed. This was when a concerning message flashed up on the sat nav letting us know that there was 16 minutes of congestion ahead of us and our new time of arrival was 4.01pm. Not ideal.

With a slight feeling of panic, we were grateful that the M74 was reasonably clear to make a bit of time back. Scott was extremely thankful that this portion of the journey was short as Dave had stuck his tunes on in the car which included an 80's mega mix of Deacon Blue, The Bangles and Boyzone.

Dave was making big claims that is was not in fact Boyzone, but some guy called Billy Ocean. But I have never heard of him.

You will be glad to hear that we made it down in time. This is how the games went.

Win 3-2 vs Ross McCleary - Pretty tight but were 2-0 up on bullet straight ice.
Loss 11-4 vs Fraser Hare - Got thumped but kept playing for ends.

That concluded the games on Friday. We had a couple of beers during the evening (not including Ross if his parents/police are reading) then headed back to Chez Edwards where we watched some boxing.

Ross was only on the mini Cokes

On the Saturday, this is how the curling went.

Win 6-4 vs Graeme Black - Graeme's nifty footwork gave us a good steal of 2.
Win 6-5 vs Hannah Fleming - This game was no where near as close as the line score makes it
Win 15-4 vs England - The skip went absolutely mental

On the Friday evening we stayed at the ice rink for the pub quiz. This was probably the part of the weekend that we missed John the least, as in the past, his contributions towards anything like this have been less than useful. We had a decent showing with us coming in around 3rd and a very, very, very long way from last, which Hannah Fleming's team of Alice Spence and Jennifer Dodds held a really firm grip off right from the word go.

After the quiz and several beers, Meg Edwards had prepared some chicken curry for us which we were very much looking forward to. We were in fact so looking forward to it, that we could not wait the extra 4 minutes it would take to do two runs from the ice rink to the Edwards household. With us being one seat short in the people carrier, somebody had to take the hit of going in the boot. On this occasion the tallest man in the team took the hit.

In retrospect, we had a child on our team so we probably should have stuffed him in the boot. Oh well.

The group stages left us ranked 2nd overall and we would face the 7th place finishers, Graeme Shedden in the quarter final. It was a good game and we managed to take our standard 4 against Shedden and ran it out 7-1.

In the semi final we were up against the infamous Graeme Black. In a surprising turn of events, Graeme Black actually did not turn up for the game. As reports from Saturday night started to come through, this actually got less and less surprising. Hope you had a good day in bed, Graeme! Scott Hamilton took the reigns and put up a good fight. We stole a 2 in the 5th end and sealed the deal with a 5 in the 7th.

In the final we were up against Grant Hardie. We lost a couple of points early and with finding any kind of draw on the Lockerbie ice extremely difficult, we pretty much stood no chance of making a come back. Grant and his team played very well and finished out the game 6-4 winners. Congratulations to Grant, Jay, Hammy and Billy.

Last year when we were staying at the Edwards household, a couple of pictures from Dave's past made it online which can be found in last years blog here. I won't name any names, but a female family member of Dave's that lives in Lockerbie provided us with some new material for the blog. Here is David Edwards throwing out his sexiest pose before representing Dumfries in some kind of race in 1990.

Dave working it.

 

I would like to thank the female family member of Dave's that lives in Lockerbie for putting up with us for the weekend and for feeding us very well! Next week Team Kerry Barr will be making a stop at the Edwards household as the first leg of the Scottish Women's Championship is being held in Dumfries. Good luck to them.

There is a bit of a break for Team Edwards now until the Kinross Open which is in the middle of December. Between now and then Scott, Dave, Louise Edwards and Rhiann Macleod are participating in the Aberdeen Club Bonspiel representing Petroleum CC...... with Scott skipping. This is going to be great. Rhiann is playing lead because I say so.

Cheers
Team Edwards
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Team début for pocket dynamo

Team Hedge and Lawn Garden Services will head off to Lockerbie for the next round of the Scottish Curling Tour, minus third man and team lightweight, John Penny. John is currently preparing for a trip to Jamaica in a last ditch attempt to keep his Winter Olympic dream alive after he was cruelly left out of the GB curling team by the selectors. John will dawn a skin suit in a bid to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, Sanka Coffie, and make the four man Jamaican bobsleigh team.......make sure you have those socks packed John.

John stuffed out to the max

John's replacement was discussed at great length. We decided that we wanted a like for like replacement in size so that there would not be a significant change in sweeping power. This involved finding someone the same height, weight and strength as John. Obviously, with those stipulations, there was only one place that we could go and look. Yes, that is right. The under 17 junior curling circuit. Stepping into the breach for the weekend will be Scott Robertson's 5ft nothing, 45 kilo teenage protege, Ross Whyte. Following some tough negotiations over performance related pay, Ross agreed to take the step down from his U17 team for the weekend and will provide the boys with some much needed boost in strength.

Ross in action.....

The lads will need to be on their guard over the weekend as Ross has a reputation for partying hard and womanising, which will put the guys clean living to the ultimate test.

Only the hard stuff will do for Ross

We'll be staying at the Edwards household again over the weekend which means we'll be heading home about 2 stone heavier than we arrived, but we'll have had a good feed.

For Team Edwards super fans, who just can not get enough of Team Edwards, the semi final and final from the Edinburgh International are available on archive.

Team Edwards v Team Hardie
Team Edwards v Team McCleary

Cheers
Team Edwards
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Edinburgh International Champions!

Last weekend we were competing in the Edinburgh International. Dave was a previous winner of the event way back in 2005 and was keen to replicate this success.

2005 Edinburgh International Winners with Dave as a scrawny, specky 26 year old.
©Hugh Stewart

John and Scott left Curl Aberdeen on Thursday evening bound for Edinburgh where they would be staying with John's in-laws for the weekend. Due to Colin's contacts at the ice rink, we managed to arrange a team practice at Murrayfield on the Thursday evening. Unfortunately, Dave was unable to attend as Louise was busy measuring him up so she could get an appropriately sized display case that she could keep his testicles in.

Extra Small

After the practice, John and Scott made their way out to Currie where Bob and Jane Barr's farm is situated. Some of you may already be aware that Bob and Jane were just about to head out to Jamaica for their 30th anniversary. When JP and the Destroyer arrived, Jane was still in the midst of packing and needed some assistance. John and Scott volunteered/got roped in to helping and were delegated the tasks of packing up Jane's many bikinis and collecting an assortment of Bob's skimpy speedos. JP tried on both sets to make sure that they would be a suitable fit. They were not a suitable fit.

Dave begged to be allowed outside for the weekend and was finally granted permission so he made his way down to Edinburgh on Friday morning for our first game.

This is how the games on the first day went.

Win 7-2 vs Gulbis
Loss 5-6 vs Sik

Dave was also staying at the Barr household for the weekend and was sharing a bed with Scott in Kerry's old room. On the first evening in the room together, all of the horrible memories Scott had from the European Mixed in Copenhagen came rushing back when he was startled by a sound coming from the other side of the bed. The sound resembled that of an enraged rhino. Thankfully, is was not an enraged rhino, it was only Dave who was snoring ridiculously loudly.

The next day had 3 games in store for us. This is how it went.

Win 6-2 vs Kyle Smith
Win 5-4 vs Hoiberg
Win 12-1 vs Ross McCleary

This qualified us top of our section and we ran into Fraser Hare in the quarter final. It was a tight game and we had an open nose hit for the game in the last end. We made the shot and were then up against Grant Hardie in the semi. We had the hammer and started scoring early which takes a lot of stress out of curling. We kept it clear pretty well and ended up winning 6-1.

In the final we were once again playing Ross McCleary who was competing in his third straight final. Ross had taken out the money teams in the quarter and semis so was obviously on a good run of form. We had the hammer and started scoring early, the key to the match really was the second end where we managed to steal a 3. Much like in the semi, it makes the score line look very one sided, but we are well aware that on a different day the games will be a lot closer. It ended 7-2 after 7 ends and Team Edwards had won their first Curling Champions Tour event......... and the first prize of £5000 which made Scott and John weak at the knees.

2013 Edinburgh International Winners with Dave as a chubby 34 year old.
©Graham Young

The full £5000 was paid out in £50 notes. This resulted in a stressful 24 hours for all members of the team as they now had twenty five £50 notes in their wallets praying to everything and anyone that they didn't get mugged.

On the way home, John stopped into Burger King as a reward for his hard work and to make his first purchase with one of his pristine £50 notes. Scott received this text from John.

John:       First thing to spend a £50 on..... A BK.... They don't like £50's.......
Scott:      Haha. Great. Did you have to stick it on your card?
John:       Aye! :(

Thwarted at his first attempt.

Also a couple of links from the weekend.

Superstar Colin Campbell
EICC - Dominant performance in the final

Thanks to Bob and Jane for putting us up for the weekend, it is very much appreciated.

Cheers
Team Edwards
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Edinburgh International Curling Championships

EDIT: I completely forgot to add this on the last blog. During our first game on Saturday morning at the Inverness Skins, following two games where we had won £54-£0, we still had to explain the rules of skins to John throughout the game. It fills us with confidence to have such a tactical powerhouse on our roster. Space cadet.

This weekend we are heading down to Murrayfield Ice Rink for the Edinburgh International. This will be our first Curling Champions Tour event of the season which can be abbreviated to CCTV event if you are Grant Hardie giving a panic stricken interview. Here is our draw. We are listed as Edwards. 

This will be Scott's first time at this event for a couple of years as he has previously been busy directing traffic dressed in a squirrel costume, if you believe Dave's bullshit.

This weekend John has organised some accommodation for the team at the Barr household. The bank accounts are very grateful for this as hotels are turning out to be quite expensive! I just hope Caitlin doesn't dump him in the next couple of days.

As there is some good money in this event, we may have to taper down our socialising a tad as our early morning performances have not been anything to write home about. Here is the link for the Edinburgh International Curling Championships website where the results will be. There is a webcast streaming from this event but unfortunately we have not made the cut.

Cheers
Team Edwards
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Curling with weird rules

It started out on Thursday evening with Scott travelling out to Westhill to stay at Dave's. This was so that we could get away early and avoid the ridiculous Aberdeen rush hour traffic as our first game was at 12.20pm.

The plan for the journey was very well organised. Scott and Dave were to travel to Old Meldrum where we would ditch Dave's car and get a lift to Inverness with John. With google maps estimating a 3 hour journey time from Aberdeen to Inverness we planned to leave at around 8.30am which would hopefully end up with us getting in around 11.30am. That would give us sufficient time to go through our rigorous warm up routine and get some lunch. That plan was thrown out the window almost instantly as Scott was woken up by Dave with a thump on the door just before 9am.

"SCOTT!!! We have slept in! Get up!"

We gave John a call to let him know the situation. Being the very thoughtful third that he is, he made his Mum cook us 4 bacon rolls which were ready to go when Dave and Scott arrived. 

Cheers Elaine!

After John razzed it up the rest of the way, we were there in plenty time and even had a chance to pose for a photo in front of the Team Edwards Supporters Club Bus.

John and Dave in front of the fan bus. 

Skins is a weird game. If you don't know what it is, I am not going to explain it, but the game is scored in money won. This is how the Friday went for us. 

Richard McKenzie £54-£0

Stuart Taylor £54-£0

One incident from our first game was when Scott horribly misread a call from our skip. Dave placed his brush at the edge of an opponents stone with the plan to make a hack weight take out. By the time Scott was at the tee-line Colin was already screaming "WAAAAAAAAAY UP!!!" and then clocked a 1.78s peel.

Despite that, overall it was pretty good. After this we had a few drinks at the ice rink and then headed out to Johnny Foxes which is the place to be on a Friday evening in Inverness. As we had an 8am game, we kept it light and decided to call it a night at 1.30am when Scott started swaying a bit too much.

This is what the Saturday had in store for us. 

Mike McInnes £54-£0

Keith Prentice £41-£13

Hannah Fleming £54-£0

So we really could not complain about the results from our round robin! Winning £257 from a potential £270 was pretty nice.

In the last round robin game Dave used psychological warfare against Hannah Fleming quite effectively. 'Psychological warfare' could be switched with 'trying to be as annoying as he possibly can'. Alice Spence is colour blind and couldn't keep her hands off Team Edwards' stones.  

After the game we stayed at the ice rink for the raffle, curry and beer. We decided to not make an appearance at Johnny Foxes on Saturday night and instead headed into town for some more calories. Colin ordered a kebab that contained a portion of chips and about three quarters of a cow. 

In the QF we were up against Ross McCleary. In this game we did not really have very many shots to win any skins. Thanks to the scoring system in place we were still in contention to win the game late on even though we had done absolutely nothing to deserve it! We lost the game at that point and played the last end out to keep our pride as we did not want to get skinned. The last end was a carryover and we managed to win our last £30 of the weekend on the team draw shot challenge. 

We are back curling very soon, but I will probably do another blog for that bit. 

Cheers

Team Edwards

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