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
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Kinross Open

While getting organised for Moscow we have had to complete a couple of administrative tasks. Dave requested that we each send him a photocopy of our passport so he could send them away to Anastasia to sort out our Visas. This was what Scott sent to Dave.

Scott's hilarious attempt at a joke.
 

After Scott being firmly told by David to send a photocopy of the correct page as we were in a rush, he got in line and sent his in. Given the response following the retro pictures that were posted of Dave, we thought that you would enjoy a snapshot of our passport photos.

Here are Scott, John and Colin. Apologies about quality.

Scott 'Heroin Addict' Macleod

John 'the gay one' Penny 

Colin 'Fat Boy' Campbell 

We were unable to obtain Dave and Greig's passport pictures as they never included them in the email. Sly buggers.

Last weekend Scott, Dave, Rhiann and Louise took part in the inaugural Curl Aberdeen Club Bonspiel representing Petroleum CC.

This was the team line-up.

Skip - Scott Macleod
Third - David Edwards
Second - Rhiann Macleod
Lead - Louise Edwards

Outrageous shout.

Despite the girls lacking any experience and skill in sweeping any stones that were sub 2.3 seconds, the team coasted through the first 2 games and earned their place in the final where they would be fighting for the much coveted championship trophy.

Although I said it was a final, it wasn't really, as it was a schenkel. In the final end of the final game, Team Macleod were 1 up without. Being slightly down on ends, the team had to steal to ensure they would top the schenkel. This did not go to plan. With no stones remaining, we were lying one against and the opposition had the tournament in the bag. At the last moment, the opposing skip decided to play the hit for 6 with his last stone as he had nothing to lose........  The diagram below shows what actually happened.

It was actually a hit for 5, but I realised that after I made the diagram.

This gave us the stolen point that we needed to win the tournament in what was an absolute nightmare of a shot for the lad. Commiserations.

Lovely first prize. Tom was not on our team.

Next weekend we are heading down the road for the penultimate leg of the Scottish Curling Tour in Kinross.

As you can see, we are sitting in third. As far as I am aware, ourselves and Ross are the only two teams competing in both of the final two events. So to earn the Galbraith Trophy and £2,000 again, we are needing to take McCleary out at some point.

This is what we have lined up for us in the group stages.

Friday 6pm vs Robert Walker
Saturday 9.30am vs David Jones
Saturday 2.30pm vs Lorna Vevers

As we are playing a women's team in one game, we are almost guaranteed at least one loss.

The Kinross Open will mark the one year anniversary of the infamous 'Cinnamon Challenge'. We will be looking to reinstate the 'Challenge Scott' series, but we are struggling for ideas. If you have any suggestions, you are more than welcome to make a contribution.

We very rarely get comments on our blogs, but this is one that popped up in reply to our Moscow blog and we thought that it deserved a bit of attention!

"I reckon you've fallen for an RCCC stitch up. To ensure you don't win the Scottish, the Russians "invite" you to play in Red Square, Moscow, and pay "all your expenses" and give you more "Vodka than you could ever drink". Double Agent Logan Gray has a hand in this I tell you. Without doubt, Colin and John will be incarcerated for crimes against fashion and sent to the salt mines in Siberia, while Scott "ladies man" McLeod will no doubt be led astray by some Russian mafia's tottie, and will mysteriously acquire a pair of concrete curling shoes in the Volga river. Dave Edwards, well he will be forced to be masseur for the Team Sidorova for the rest of the season. It'll be hell!"

 

Very well done to whoever composed that beast. It made us laugh. Especially the bit where you called Scott a 'ladies man'. Good one. But poor Dave, such a brutal punishment......

If any of you are unsure about what some of the members of Team Sidorova look like. Here is a short video clip that will give you an idea....

No idea how it is still only on 900 views.

 

Cheers

Team Edwards

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The Red Square Classic, Moscow

I know we speak a lot of rubbish on this blog the vast majority of the time, but this one is genuinely true.

Team Edwards will be making their first foreign trip of the season to the newly formed Curling Champions Tour event in Moscow, The Red Square Classic!

The information for the event claims that there will be a "Participation of eight top teams from around the world". Fortunately, they must have not been able to find 8 top teams as Team Edwards got the invite to fill a spot.

Spectacular outdoor location!

Here is what the Curling Champions Tour says about the event.

"On the eve of the Winter Olympic Games 2014 in Sochi, January 19-23, 2014, Moscow will host the Curling Champions Tour Red Square Open men's event....

The tournament will be held in the very heart of the Russian capital - on the very famous Red Square!

A side program of the event will include curling classes held by eminent coaches in addition to a celebrities' contest.

With comfortable conditions lots of activities on and off the ice, fun and excitement are guaranteed for all participants and supporters!"

  

This sounds ridiculously cool. Obviously we jumped at the chance to take up the offer of a free+ trip to Moscow to play some curling in the centre of one of the world's most famous landmarks!

The Red Square is home to some very famous sights, such as the Kremlin, St. Basil's Cathedral, and of course, Lenin's Mausoleum. Colin does not know what a mausoleum is, but he is really keen to meet the Celtic manager.

I can not imagine being outdoors in Moscow during the middle of January is going to be very warm.

Wikipedia agrees.

So we are quite looking forward to this and if anyone has any advice on how to get a visa* for Russia, that would be great.

*for John Penny - No, your bank card won't get you in. It is a different kind of visa.

Cheers
Team Edwards
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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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