Season Update!

So there has been a bit of a Team Edwards blogging hiatus over the last couple months! Sorry about that, we will try and up our game from now on.

A fair amount of curling has happened since the last post so we will quickly run through it to get you all up to speed.

Kinross Open 2014!

We had won this event in 2012 and 2013 and we were keen to retain our title. We were in a group with Hannah Fleming and Hamish Geyer which we managed to top. We faced back to back McCleary's in the quarters and semis to run into our main challenger for the Scottish Curling Tour, Tom Brewster, in the final. Going into the last end we were sitting pretty well.

After                                           #pistol                                         Before

We were red with hammer. We required 2 for the win.

I know the pictures are the wrong way round but Tom was facing the situation on the right with his last stone and we were left with the situation on the left. We did not really have a shot for a two, or even a one, but Dave tried the ambitious and impossibly flat double off the stone on the right of the 12ft at barrier weight.

If anybody can see a shot that we could have played that was physically possible (for David Edwards), please let us know.

So Tom won Kinross which was a bit annoying as if we had won this event we would have all but sealed first place in the Scottish Curling Tour. So all the excitement and anticipation would have to wait until the final event of the SCT at the Aberdeen City Open!

Dumfries CCT

In Dumfries we were once again staying at the Edwards household right before Christmas. It goes without saying but we were phenomenally well fed and looked after as always!

John Penny breathing in hard.
3rd place at the Dumfries CCT

Nothing of note that I can remember happened, but we lost the semi final to Kyle Smith! Our quarter final against Ross McCleary is on youtube (link below) as is the semi against Kyle (link more below).

Team Edwards v Team R McCleary

Team Edwards v Team Smith

We won the 3/4 game against Thomas Lovold from Norway for a decent amount of cash!

Perth Masters

Billy was unavailable for selection for the first day of the Perth Masters. We were trying for weeks to try and find a sub for Billy, but as hard as we tried, we were unfortunately unable to find anyone suitable to play lead. That is why Cameron Bryce got the call to chuck lead stones for us in a couple of games! We managed to have the Friday afternoon off and had a bit of time to observe some curling and have a few drinks. It escalated quickly and unexpectedly.

Unfortunately we didn't win any silverware this weekend

We had a long day on the Saturday and we were on our last life in the C-final against Kyle Smith. We did not come out on top and we were out!

Scottish Qualifiers

Hosted by Meg again, the reviews for the accommodation on this occasion were also extremely high! Good effort!

So now we had to focus as it was now time for some important curling. Although we just had to finish top 5 in our group of 7, it was a fairly solid group. We started poorly and things were not looking awesome but we had a game against Scott's curling slide idol, Graeme Shaw, for qualification to Men's finals!

We got the win and had to book time off work for the Scottish.

Aberdeen City Open

Things were tight at the City Open with Tom Brewster sitting 6 points behind us in the Scottish Curling Tour. If we got to the final of the event that was enough for us to secure first place in the tour!

As Billy is a high flying professional he was once again unavailable for the first game so we requested the services of Canadian retired veteran lead, Kerr Drummond.

Kerr in action

We did not have many issues in the group stages and managed to qualify top. The Saturday night was a lot of fun with a Race Night that was excellently MC'd!

The Sunday morning was not as fuzzy as it was for the team last year and we managed to get through both Hannah Fleming and Lauren Gray to meet the recently crowned Junior Men's Champs in the final.

We got a wee lead against Bruce Mouat but started to crumble towards the end of the game. Dave had to draw the 4ft for the title which he made without any issues!

Billy invading Scott's personal space

I have been told to write in this blog that the ice at Curl Aberdeen was excellent over the weekend and to applaud the gruelling hours of work put in by the iceman*.

*I was told to write this by my flatmate so it is obviously completely impartial.

So with Tom Brewster getting knocked out in the quarter final we had won the Goldline Scottish Curling Tour! This is the second time we have been the overall winners of the tour.

But the more impressive record and the one we are most proud of as a team is that we had to play several women's teams this season and we managed to avoid losing on every single occasion! Congratulations to us. This has nothing to do with the retirement of Kerry Barr, Rachel Simms, Rhiann Macleod and Barbara McFarlane. That is just a complete coincidence.

So the leader board is above and it does not show how close it was. We are going to claim that we may have set a points record for the tour with 56? That could be a ridiculous claim though.

The Scottish Championships are up next but I will try and chuck out a blog before the event starts!

Cheers
Team Edwards
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