Toothy Travails

The extra spare time in my life forced upon me by Her Majesty’s Civil Service has been put to good use in recent weeks. Before my last blog from the Welsh Bonspiel I took a day trip over to the European Mixed. There can be very few curling rinks which are 20 minutes walk from a major airport but in Copenhagen there is the five sheet Taarnby rink which has recently been expanded by two extra sheets which were finished just in time for the European Mixed at the beginning of October. In addition the high pitched roof on the extension allows for the inclusion of a large function suite at first floor level, which in future plans will have a glass wall overlooking the main rink. Should be spectacular.

The European Mixed is the first of three international championships being held there this season – the European Juniors in January and the World Seniors in April are the others, and it is remarkable how a relatively small club manages to produce the funding and the organisation to run these events. The main promoter is Johannes Jensen and one of the features of the Taarnby rink is the display cases full of just a part of his collection of curling memorabilia.
I intend to repeat my day trip with a visit to the European Juniors and probably the Seniors as well - £45 return from Stansted with Easyjet is less than most internal flights in the UK!

At the Mixed I must admit to getting confused as to which event I was attending – there were juniors, seniors and all ages participating and when you have seen people like Harry Lill of Estonia playing in Europeans as well as the Juniors and now the Mixed, just a quick glimpse on to the ice can be disconcerting.

I am currently in Scotland as I write having just played in the Braehead Mixed Doubles and will be heading off to Stranraer tomorrow to play in the Preston Club’s I’Anson Trophy. There is a full entry of sixteen teams with many new curlers about to enjoy the Stranraer experience for the first time.

It was only my second MD competition (after the English Championships in 2007) and my partner, Dawn Watson’s, first. The rules of MD are a little bit different and I made a faux pas in our first game when I thought that the winning side placed the stones for the next end when of course it is the losing side (as you all knew). So this meant that we had to replay the second end and my apologies to our opponents, Angus Shearer and Nicola Evans who went on to win the best under 25 prize in spite of losing to us.

It was just one of two wins for us in the competition which was two evenings of intense curling – three games per night, five end games for the first four, and then two six end games. If you are throwing the middle set of 3 stones in the team, and getting up to sweep those stones as well, it is a very good work out for your curling muscles. It was great to see so many juniors playing and also the two wheelchair teams.

So those are the travels – the travails are around the European Championships in Moscow. As I said to somebody recently, how did they manage to put a man in space! Maybe that is unfair and it is just cultural differences, but the whole issue of getting a visa has been remarkably stressful and there are still some of my players without them just two weeks before they go.

To summarise - the players were not allowed to apply for their visas before the 1st November – already a tight schedule. To apply for your visa you had first of all to receive a letter from the organising committee inviting you to play in the Championships. The website said that, obviously, this had to done before doing your visa application and a form was provided on the website to supply information about your passport number etc. So in late August / early September I encouraged our players to apply for their letters so they would have them in plenty of time to apply for their visa after 1st November.

Time went on and nothing had arrived in mid to late October and so emails started flying. What transpired was that none of the players’ details were in Russia – and then we got an email in late October saying that we would get on better if we applied for the letters as a group!

Anyway, by this time one of our players was flying off to South Korea and would not be back until late November and another was on business in Europe and would have to apply via the consulate in The Hague! Eventually, after re-submitting the details, the letters arrived last week and visits to Russian consulates in London and Edinburgh (and The Hague) are being undertaken.

A number of questions could be asked – why so late for the players to apply for visas as they are the most important people in the competition? What happened to the missing data? Why was the website not clearer about applying as a group if it was that critical?

And then yesterday an email arrived saying that if players wanted to use official transport between hotel and the arena it would cost them £84 for the week. Ours are walking!

And then there are the juniors................but that is another story!

Sorry for being Mr Grumpy but every day my inbox is full of emails – how the hell did I ever manage when I was working!

Hopefully my travels will continue with my trip to Moscow in early December and my travails will lessen as the weeks pass. Fingers crossed.

Top photo is of John puzzling over strategy at the Braehead Open Mixed Doubles. Above is his partner in that event, Dawn Watson. Photos © Skip Cottage.

Manson Wins After Fifteen Years

The one characteristic of the Welsh Bonspiel which stands out, apart from its friendliness, is the loyalty of the teams which enter the competition every year. The first Welsh Bonspiel took place in 1978 and was won by Bill Crichton and many of the other skips that appear on the entry list are no longer with us, but in 1979 a certain Graeme Adam got his name onto the Trophy and here in 2011 he was still winning, this time the Stan Williams Trophy for teams finishing 3rd in their section.

In 1981 Hugh and Christine Stewart won that same Stan Williams Trophy playing with Jim and Liz Jamieson who this year helped Graeme to win it. Hugh also won the main Bonspiel Trophy in 1991 but has so far not won the B Road Trophy which has had various names but is currently the J A M Trophy, after John Stone and Margaret Meikle who have been running the competition since I can remember.

In 1982 a young Adrian Meikle won the B Road Trophy, and this year he was runner-up in the same competition while among the winners in 1984 and 1985 was Chris Wells who was very close to a final this year.

Graeme Adam, Ena Smith, Gordon Crawford, Adrian Meikle and John Brown have all won all three trophies but until this year the main Bonspiel had eluded Janice and George Manson. Ironically their team mates Ian and Pam Paxton had won the trophy in 2004 with David and Mary Robertson when Janice and George had been unavailable but two previous B Road and three Stan Williams Trophy wins could not assuage their desire for the main trophy.

In 2005 they had reached the final, only to be beaten at an extra end by yours truly, but this year there was no stopping them. An undefeated run through the sections games defeating the holder, Adrian Meikle, Graeme Adam and Michael Yuille (twice) led them to a final against Colin Martin, last year’s runner-up who had also won all four of his section games against John Brown, Elaine Semple, Hugh Stewart and Chris Wells (winning by one shot after taking a five at the last end).

As with many games at the weekend the final went down to the wire, only to be spoiled by a pick up for Colin Martin on his first stone which left the way clear for George Manson to place a guard on the shot which Colin had been trying to get at and left no real shot for Colin’s last stone, Janice running out the winner by 8-6.

The B road final was also a tense affair between Lesley Gregory’s team skipped by Andrew Woolston with Lesley at third, husband Martin at second and local girl Lauren Baxter at lead, defeating Adrian Meikle who this year, instead of alternating his daughters at lead had them both playing, Charlotte at third and Danielle at lead. The ever present Andrew Tanner swept his heart out at second (as well as playing some great shots of course). Final score in this one was 8-5.

The C Road Final was the only one of the three which finished early with Graeme Adam, along with wife Julia and Jim and Liz Jamieson, defeating Elaine Semple, husband Colin and Pat and Graham Ross, by 9-1.

As usual the Bonspiel was sponsored by Glenfarclas who provided the requisites for the Saturday evening tasting session before the customary excellent Greenacres carvery served up by Elma Paterson and her team.

Next year will be the 33rd Welsh Bonspiel and also my 20th – see what I mean by loyalty – I hope to get back to winning ways but no matter whether I do or not it will be enough to go back to Greenacres and meet up with old friends and rivals and to enjoy the friendship of curling on and off the ice.

Winners' photos are here.

And here we go again...

As I sit here in an almost deserted office life is about to change – in just ten days time I shall get my last salary from the Government and, a few years early, I will join the ranks of the unemployed / retired – a great opportunity you might think to go and play curling for seven days a week. Just a little snag – the lack of a regular income until I get my pension in three years time.

But I will be frequenting my usual haunts in the coming months – at least until the compensation runs out – Greenacres and Stranraer are on my schedule for October and November and I am also adding a trip to Braehead for the Mixed Doubles because I am aiming to regain my English MD title in the New Year – have always fancied a trip to Turkey ever since I saw Midnight Express. Well, maybe not…

What it does mean is that I will not be playing any Seniors curling this year but will be spending more time helping to build up our Junior squad and set in place the next generation of Juniors following close behind? Tuesday night and it must be Fenton’s Curling Club will be my motto for the next few months. Not being constrained by the ties of an office desk (and enough from those who cannot believe I ever was!), I will be able to take a leisurely drive to Kent and spend a couple of hours with the youngsters before relaxing on the ice with a game in the Fenton’s Leagues.

Ernest Fenton and his son Forbes have run a Junior academy at the club for the past few seasons and it is hoped that some of the graduates from there will be the succession to the current junior teams who added to their experience with a trip to the Sweetlake Curling Camp in Holland over the summer. You can read an article about the camp in the ECA newsletter here.

This season we have timetabled a Junior Championship at the end of October when it is hoped that teams will come forward to challenge the current champions for a place in the EJCC at Taarnby in January.

One of the girls in the Junior team, Angharad Ward, was chosen recently to attend the trial day for the selection of Team GB for the Winter Youth Olympic Games – full details of WYOG can be found here while the details about the curling competition can be found on the WCF website here. The event is only open to players born in 1994 or 1995.

There were six boys and six girls at the selection day and two of each will be required for the trip to Innsbruck. The selection panel is due to meet in late September and so it will be a nervous time for Angharad as she waits to see if she has cracked the Scottish domination of all things Team GB Curling. Also a nervous time for me as the WYOG overlaps with the ECA Mixed Doubles and Angharad is my partner in that event!

With a trip to Moscow to the Europeans on her schedule as part of Fiona Hawker’s team and an EJCC in Taarnby to play in if they win the ECA Junior Championships it is potentially going to be a very busy year for Angharad – on top of which she has her GCSEs to sit!

I am sure the resilience of the youth will keep her going.

As a warm up for the season there was a bonspiel held at iceSheffield last Saturday. Four sheets were laid out but unfortunately there were only 16 curlers in attendance – and quite a mixture too – two absolute beginners (from Australia – though not just for the day!), three who have been playing regularly at Sheffield on Saturday evenings on their half length sheets, a couple of the ice rink staff, an experienced curler who lives in Sheffield together with eight stalwarts of the ECA who had travelled from as far afield as Whitley Bay and Maidenhead.

The ice was available for five hours and after a session of coaching for the new and inexperienced ones and a general limbering up of the limbs for those who already knew roughly what to do, and after a short lunch break, a mini round robin was played at the end of which the ice rink presented a little trophy and some medals to the first three teams, and a wooden spoon to the 4th! Hopefully I will have some pictures soon and full details of the results to accompany them.

So an early start to the season here in England and it all kicks off at Fenton’s on October 3. Good stones and a successful season to you all.

Final Tale from 2010-11

Well here we are at the end of another season and it seems to have been an awfully long one – and maybe it has – the European Mixed in September to the World Seniors and Mixed Doubles in late April mean that the season now stretches for a full seven months and a lot has happened in between.

Our teams returned from St Paul quietly satisfied that they had done a good job. The men were a bit disappointed that they had just failed to beat Australia in the quarterfinal and were more disappointed when they discovered that their draw shot challenge distance relegated them below Scotland in the final standings, even though they had beaten them in round robin play. The quirk of the system is that all losing quarterfinalists, while they all reached the same stage, are ranked on their DSC distances acquired during pre-game practice sessions for the round-robin games.

This also led to the women being ranked eleventh below Russia even though they had beaten them in the round robin. Ironically if New Zealand had lost their last game then we would have been ranked above Russia as we beat them, but the NZ victory over Japan brought them level on two wins with Russia and England, and since each had beaten one of the others the DSC came into play to decide the ranking!

Also, our Mixed Doubles pair of John Sharp and Jane Clark were disappointed that they had let slip a couple of opportunities to win from a leading position, but such is the nature of the format that big leads can disappear in relatively few ends.

And I will only mention it once but we cannot find any other instance in International Championship play where England beat Scotland twice in one week. No further comment.

So, looking back over the season from an English point of view, on an International front it has been disappointing – a fourth place in the European Mixed being the highlight. Poor performances from our teams in the Europeans in December left us as far away from World Championship play as we have ever been recently.

However the performance of our junior women in the European Junior Challenge in January and the emergence of a junior men’s team shows promise for the future which we shall try and maintain with a structured coaching and development programme.

Domestically of course the news was dominated by the uncertainty around the Four Nations with respect to the Scottish representation. As far as we are concerned that is water under the bridge now but I would love to be able to attend the RCCC AGM in June to hear how much the members make it an issue. Unfortunately other domestic appointments make my attendance impossible but I will no doubt hear feedback from those who do attend.

Fenton’s Rink in Kent continues to flourish and will re-open in September for an eighth season, while there is news that ice time has been offered to Preston Curling Club at Blackburn. Ice Sheffield is seeking to develop a curling pathway and to form a club, while Stephen Hinds is pressing ahead with plans for a rink North West of London near Chalfont St Giles. Unfortunately Solihull appears to have been a dead end and the local interest we had there seems to have dried up.

I hope that you have found these Toothy Tales to have been of interest throughout the year – they have been less frequent than I would have liked but other pressures have limited their production.

Have a great summer and hopefully we will all come back refreshed in the Autumn ready for another season of the world’s friendliest sport.

Then there was peace

After the excitement of the last few days it was a pretty uneventful Annual General Assembly of the World Curling Federation today. With 43 members represented and 15 proxies there were more than enough for a quorum. President Kate Caithness started proceedings with a minute’s silence in the memory of the people of Japan and New Zealand and also the recent losses of Frank Duffy and Jim Duff, one of whose roles of course was as Master of Ceremonies for the Pondhoppers Club.

One of the banes of the organisers of major championships is the recent custom for teams to arrive late for things like final banquets or to appear in casual clothes when team uniform has been requested. In future if a complaint is received from an organising committee there will be a financial penalty for the infraction payable by the national association concerned.

I have talked already a couple of days ago (see here) of some of the proposals. Time outs (as coach interactions will now be called) will remain as they are currently operated, with clocks stopped for a specified travelling time and then the coach having one minute to interact with the team with the clocks running; tie breakers will remain in operation for most competitions, but for the WSCC, WMDCC and EJCC, alternative skill based solutions which do not require extra games will be trialled from next season; more detail will be put on the bones for the new World Championship Qualifying system for further approval at Moscow, and the first World Curling Congress will be held in the autumn of 2012 though there will still be a General Assembly at Basel in April.

And that was about it!

And the fun continues...

Yesterday was the Semi Annual General Meeting of the European Curling Federation and just 18 of the 37 members of the Federation were represented in person. The problem was that 50% are required to make the meeting quorate so no decisions could be taken! So bit of a waste of time for anyone who had travelled specially, though most are here for today’s WCF Annual General Assembly.

The meeting got off to a sensational start when President Andrew Ferguson-Smith announced that he had come to an agreement with the municipality of Champery for the setting up of a European Centre of Curling Excellence in Champery of which he would be the first CEO. It was going to be set as a Société à responsabilité limitée, broadly equivalent to a private company limited by shares (Ltd) in the United Kingdom with 49% owned by the ECF and 51%% by the curling club and municipality of Champery. The HQ office of the ECF would also be there and the municipality was giving free office space.

After the good burghers of Champery had given their presentation on the project, uproar ensued as many of the ECF members complained that they were being presented with a fait accompli and that they had not had a chance to see if this deal was the best for their association and members. Even the Executive Board of the ECF had only seen the proposal last night and so were not prepared to fully back their President.

After last year’s stand-off with the WCF this was a further blow to the credibility of the ECF President with his members. At the end of the day he was asked to go away and produce the paperwork for the project, which he hoped to begin in September, so that members could pore over it and check out the details.

That is not to say that the members disagreed with the idea – all who spoke backed the concept of the proposal but unfortunately the manner of its presentation and sudden appearance on the agenda did not find favour. One can only hope that the visitors from Champery will not drop the idea as being too much of a hot potato and that the proposal will get the go ahead in due course.

The rest of the meeting passed quietly. The one major announcement was that the 2012 EMCC and ECC – C group competitions would more than likely be in Erzurum, Turkey, the recent site of the World University Games. Just a few more details need to be finalised before the venue is confirmed. Interestingly to make the combination of the two championships easier the games in the ECC-C group will be limited to 8 ends, the same as the EMCC.

The International Court of Arbitration of Sport had also thrown out Poland’s legal action against the ECF after the ECF had suspended them from the European Championships for non-payment of their annual subscription. It was also announced that ten countries had still to pay their subscription for this year – including Denmark, Germany and Russia. I hope the last pays in time or they will not be playing at the Europeans in Moscow!

Off the Ice at Esbjerg

While the women battle it out on the ice in Esbjerg, happenings off the ice could change the face of international championships in the near future.

Under the two tenets of the WCF wanting to have control over who plays in their championships and having the best teams on the ice at the major finals, a group was set up following the meetings in Champery last December to iron out the details of a qualifying competition for the Men’s and Women’s World Championships from 2014 onwards.

As a result of that group’s discussions and further talk in the last couple of days it looks as though the following system will ultimately get the go ahead – but not until further details are added to the proposal and so not until Moscow in December.

For the World Championships from 2014 onwards the participants will be decided as follows: the host nation, the top 7 countries from previous World Championships and then the top two teams from at least two qualifying competitions to be run by the WCF.

The top seven countries may be from the previous season or from a weighted average of past performance (say over the previous three seasons) – this is one of the details to be finalised.
All other member nations would participate (if they wanted to) in a qualifying competition – let’s assume there will be two called Red and Blue. If the host venue for one of these competitions is in the entries then they would be placed in the respective group and then all other nations would be placed according to World ranking. Otherwise World ranking would be the sole determinant. Entries would need to be in by June 1st and the qualifying competitions would be held in November, except for an Olympic season when they would be held in January because the Olympic Qualifying Event is programmed for November (see below for details of that!). The top two teams from each event would qualify for the WMCC and WWCC.

So this means the end of regional qualification via the European or Pacific Championships and also ends the almost automatic qualification of Canada and the USA who would have to finish in the top 7 or 8 to qualify for the next year. In the most extreme circumstances it could mean a World Championships made up entirely of European countries or alternatively with only three or four European Countries participating. It also calls into doubt the role and status of the Pacific and European Championships.

With Olympic qualification dependent upon gathering points in the World Championships will national associations be forced by their national Olympic Associations to enter the World Qualifying competitions but then not offered any help to compete in the European Championships which will occur just a few weeks later? Will a country’s best players be able to get time off or to afford to attend both competitions?

From an England point of view for example why should we send a team to the World Qualifying as we do not get any Olympic points even if we get to Worlds and even if we did it is certain that our champion teams could not afford to play in both – so do we send a poorer quality team to the Europeans? But then entry to the WCF Qualifier will presumably be free while an entry to the European Championships costs over £500?

And then there is the Olympic Qualifying Event (OQE) – this was confirmed at the meetings in Champery – it will be held in the November prior to the Olympics and will be for all nations who have played in the three previous World Championships but not gathered enough qualifying points to automatically play in the Olympics. So for season 2013-14 (and other Olympic seasons) the programme begins to look like this: OQE in November, Europeans/Pacifics in December, World Qualifiers in January, Olympics in February and Worlds in March/April – quite a programme and is it sustainable in what is still an amateur sport?

In non Olympic years the World Qualifying Competition will take place in November. One side effect of all this could be that the World Mixed Doubles and World Seniors will not be changed to November as was previously proposed – soundings will be taken of the teams in St Paul at this year’s competitions.

Two rule changes will also be voted on at Friday’s General Assembly. Firstly the issue of time-outs has arisen again. In Cortina it was decided that they would be replaced by coach interactions when the coach could have a minute on the ice with his/her players but the clock would not stop. This led to some dangerous situations with coaches running or climbing barriers to get to their team as quickly as possible. In Champery it was decided to implement a travelling time for the coaches which would be specific to each venue and would be when the clock would be stopped. When the coach reached their team the clock would start and they would have a minute on the ice with their team.

It is necessary for this revised rule to be defined in the Rule Book and so this will be done on Friday if voted for but in addition the option of doing away with time-outs all together will also be put on the table.

The WCF is still keen to do away with tiebreakers as the need to allow time in the programme is not an efficient use of time if it is not needed and situations have arisen recently where insufficient time was allowed in the programme for tiebreakers, leading to the situation at the EJCC in Prague where the Czech Republic played four games in one day.

There is no option on the table to do away with tie breakers but there is a motion to keep tie breakers for the moment in the WMCC, WWCC, WJCC, WWhCC and WMDCC but to try out a number of alternative systems in the EJCC, PJCC, WSCC and WWhQCC – these alternatives include variations on the Draw Shot Challenge, including more than one stone per game, a post round robin shoot out, as trialled at the EMCC last September, or a reversion to a previous system of a post round robin four-stone all team member draw shot challenge.

The final major proposal put forward by the WCF Board was to disconnect the WCF General Assembly from the World Championships to allow attention to be focussed on the curling and allow WCF Board Members more time to network and entertain sponsors. The idea is that there will be a World Curling Congress in the Autumn which will not just incorporate the meetings but could be expanded to include clinics etc. While the WCF wanted to initiate this in 2011, they were persuaded that arrangements were already too far advanced for the semi-annual assembly at Moscow in December and so the likely outcome is for the General Assembly due for Basel in April to be abandoned and the first World Curling Congress to take place in Autumn 2012.
Further information on these proposals will follow the General Assembly in Friday.

Watch this space.