Kinross Open Champions!

On Friday, John Penny was designated the responsibility of delivering the Aberdeen contingent of Team Edwards to Kinross to compete in the Scottish Curling Tour event.

Scott and John stopped by Curl Aberdeen for a quick practice before heading into town to pick up Mr. Edwards.

Fabulous ice provided by Pye!

After getting to the centre of Aberdeen to pick Dave up at his office, we headed to the Yodel depot where Dave was looking to pick up his brand new Xbox One. This took ages. With John and Scott waiting in the car they decided to investigate. They walked into the depot to see Dave waiting on the Yodel man trying to find his box. After deciding that the muscle of the two baby faced members of the team would not speed up the situation, they left the building. The Yodel employee then asked Dave if John and Scott were his sons. That was pretty entertaining.

The years have obviously not been kind to the members of the Edwards household.

Father Dave back in his prime.

This is how the group games went;

Win vs David Jones 11-4. Opened her up with a 4 in the first end and took things from there.
Win vs Stuart Brand 6-4. Took a 3 in the last end to seal the deal in an alcohol effected 7 end classic.
Win vs Lorna Vevers 9-3. Managed to break the curse we faced playing womens teams.

On the Saturday evening there was a pub quiz organised at the rink. We needed fuel to keep our minds sharp for the quiz, so we made our way out to the Muir Inn for some food. As we walked in, Scott and John were instantly ID'd along with the rest of the team and coach. Greig Henderson passed over his bus pass which was enough to get him a pint.

Greig's ID.

For the quiz, we were sitting at the table with our team, Greig Henderson and 3 members of Team Vevers. As the quiz required teams of 4, somebody had to take the hit and join up with the girls. True to form, Greig instantly volounteered. Dave, Scott and Colin have experienced the abilities of their wise third and knew that their chances of winning would not be weakened by ditching JP. After prying Greig away from Becca, Sarah and Lorna, John was forced out.

There were a mixed bag of results from the table with Team Edwards minus JP(named Colin Campbell's Bush Trimming Services Ltd) coming in a safe second while Team Vevers + JP took a shaky and much assisted second last place.

Colin Campbell is very good at working with bushes and knocking down houses.

Following the quiz, a challenge was offered to eat a Kit Kat with a thick spreading of blue cheese on the top. So rank. A few members of the team attempted the challenge. The results may be posted in the future.

Not an ideal combination

So we had qualified top in our group and were facing the cream of English curling in the quarter final. This was a strong game against Michael Opel and we ran out 7-1 winners after 5 ends.

In the semi we were up against Ewan MacDonald. We had a great first end taking a 3. We didn't do a great job of scoring many points after that we and were 4-3 down with two ends to go. Ewan went hard for the force in the 7th but it didn't set up great for him and we managed to take a 4, we then peeled our way home in the 8th and were rewarded with a place in the final!

We were then up against Grant Hardie, Jay McWilliam, Glass Jaw and Billy Morton in a repeat of the Lockerbie Superspiel final a couple of weeks ago. Grant had beaten Ross McCleary in the other semi, so we had the opportunity to go one point ahead of him in the Scottish Curling Tour if we were to come out on top.

It was  a pretty boring game until the 4th end. With a lot of stones play Grant had to draw to the 4ft against 3. His stone hit a slow track and came up short allowing us to go 4-0 up. We managed to hold on to this one and the final score was 6-1 to win the Kinross Open for the second time!

Kinross Open Champions 2013 - picture taken by Andy R McPherson

So overall it was a good weekend with a win and a solid jump to the top of the Scottish Curling Tour leader board with only the Aberdeen City Open remaining.

Thanks to Kinross for a very well organised tournament with great ice conditions.

Following the prize giving we made our way back up the road eating throughout the journey. Once John had dropped everyone off, he sent this snapchat indicating his unhappiness about the state of his car.

Oh well

That is it!

Cheers
Team Edwards
X