The season so far has been a slow burner and our social activities could be viewed by some as the reason we've misfired on a couple of occasions elsewhere on the Scottish Curling Tour. That being said results have been improving and we headed off to Kinross last weekend hoping to make a move up the Scottish Curling Tour rankings and by all accounts we had a pretty successful weekend.
When Dave and John arrived on Friday there was a sizable welcoming party in attendance who proceeded to question the Lionel Richie concert the previous night that Dave attended. Dave claimed that the tickets were free and that he was dragged out by Louise. This is not true. Dave has loved Lionel ever since his second solo album released in 1983. (The reason for Dave’s number 83 shirt).
The team lined up against the Latvians (Regza) in the first game miffed that team Curl One Out (more to follow on them later) had received a walkover in their first round game and therefore had a lie in. The lads headed off the Latvian challenge and headed off for a bit of fuel at Loch Levens Larder. It has to be said it was worth the trip and for those of you who haven't been it's thoroughly recommended and you get a cracking feed. One question that did crop up was whether it really was an impression of Rob Niven's torso that was stuck to the wall in the restaurant?!? We sincerely hope it wasn't his legs that were on show! The Christmas jumpers were also of extremely high quality.
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| Catalogue worthy |
Team Barr took an early 4-1 lead in our second game of the weekend and fortunately they ran out of steam before the end. Next up was Gordon Addison in a game that could see us qualify with a day to spare. We took a 3 in the first end and ran out the game to ensure qualification for the knock out stages.
Last game of the group stages was against Team Curl One Out. Now we don't normally go into too much detail about curling games, but on this occasion we're going to make an exception. This was the big one and the crowd arrived in their droves to watch the match-up against Gracie & Co. Dave Soutar was one fan in attendance who had extracted himself from his pit on a Saturday morning to witness this momentous game. Pregame nerves got the better of the underdogs and Team Edwards whipped a three off the pretenders in the first end. Scott "Hagrid" Robertson deserves a special mention as he was soaking up so much "fresh air" in the first few ends that we wondered if he thought he was on the beach. It didn't get any better for the boys from D&G as we brought out the power game and punishment rained down. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the boys from the south bent over and took a good spanking from Team Edwards. We did notice Curl One Out stood for the rest of the day as their arses were so red raw.
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| Hagrid enjoying the fresh air. |
The old boys Colin and Dave went for a nap while Scott and John had a romantic afternoon planned together with the TV and Babestation. The young boys topped out their phone bills calling the Babestation girls, they will have a lot of explaining to do when their parents get the bill at the end of the month.
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| This is Dani. She was their favourite, looks like she has a wonderful personality. |
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| They didn't look this cocky after Penny and Macleod walked by, |
Down to the Ten Pin Bowling. We played 3 games.
John struggled in the early frames with all the skill, power and accuracy of an 8 year old girl not quite cutting it in this high level game.
For Scott, ten pin bowling was very much like his peels. A combination of extremely poor technique mixed with a max power effort sometimes resulted in some embarrassingly erratic results, but by Christ, when it hit, it really hit.
Being a lead, it felt incredibly unnatural for Colin to actually knock the pins over. He kept trying to freeze them. After a solid 20 minutes of trying to explain the concept to him we were not having any luck and let him use the throwing aid mainly used by young children. This helped and he redeem him score slightly.
Dave was consistent and shit.
Here are the results.
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| The running totals were Scott-363, Colin-343, John-324, Dave-322. |
After the ten bowling, we headed home to bed in preparation for the quarter final against team Lorna Vevers with Kyle Smith skipping. This was a game we really wanted to win as there was potential we could once again face Team Curl One Out in the semi.
We were also motivated by Dave Soutar who was getting a bit big for his boots and forcasting our impending defeat on Twitter.
@David_Soutar wrote:
@scottmacleod1 @granitecitydave Big game this morning. You're going to lose to girls (and a guy!). #c'monthefemmes #curling
Psyched up by a bald man, we were focused and ready to go. It was a reasonably tight game until we stole a 2 and managed to hold them off until the end of the game.
In the semi-final, Team Curl One Out were once again out of their comfort zone. Having never ventured anywhere near this stage in a competition before and being up against such a high class and better looking team, they were always going to struggle. This was especially true after taking the rough side of the spanking paddle so hard in the group game. Prior to the first stone, Team Edwards won the toss and the game was effectively over. Team Curl One Out sought solace in the fact that they managed to score a 2 in the 6th end to make it more respectable.
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| The paddle that became extremely familiar with Team Curl One Out |
Team Curl One Out went on to beat Murray Young on the 3/4 playoff and take home the four bottles of whisky. Congratulations.
This lined us up against Ross McCleary in the final. Colin Campbell, for the first time as a Team Edwards member, was prolific at winning the toss. We once again had hammer in the first end which we used it well to take a 2. Following this we gave up a 1 and a steal after we could not quite get to grips with how quick the ice was getting. We then took another 2 and had a bit of breathing space in the last end, which we needed. We had a hit on a stone which was around half open for the tournament victory. It unfortunately picked half way down and wrecked on the guard. Onto the extra end, with the ice not curling a ton, so it was tricky to get round guards, Ross left his last stone high and we had the open hit for the win!
This was Team Edwards first ever tournament victory and let us sail to the top of the Scottish Curling Tour rankings with only one event remaining in Aberdeen.
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| Kinross Open 2012 - Champions |
For those wondering, Scott attempted the Cinnamon Challenge. The results will be uploaded and posted in the near future.
Cheers
Team Edwards
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