World Curling Championship 2008 - Rotary Club of Perth Curlers set off this week to the 19th Rotary World Curling Championships in Brantford, Ontario, Canada which are played on a bi-annual basis in either Scotland or Canada/USA alternatively. The 2010 Championship will return to Perth after a 28 year absence.
The 5 man team of Alistair Ritchie, Bill Duncan, Alay Milne, Hamish Milne and Russell McCabe will play a minimum of 9 games in the round robin stages of the competition against 3 rinks each from Canada (Niagara Falls/Bethesda, Stratford & Barrie) and USA (Clarksville, Florida/Bethesda and Madison), a rink from Berwick-on-Tweed, England, and two other Scottish rinks both representing the Rotary Club of Forfar. The competition starts on Sunday 30th March at the Brantford Golf & Country Club (which will host the Nokia Ontario Provincial Championships in 2009), and runs through the round robin matches until Thursday 3rd April, with the top 4 rinks then qualifying for the semi finals and final which are played on Friday 4th April.
A Friendship Bonspiel for those clubs who haven’t qualified for the Championships this year has attracted 10 teams with 7 rinks from Canada and 3 from Scotland with a joint rink representing both Perth Kinnoull and Perth St. Johns Rotary Clubs ready to take up that challenge.
*** Rotary Club of Perth wish our Curlers the very best for the World Championships ***
31st March 2008 - Curling Team Update: Perth were edged out by Forfar in the opening game of the Championships, when the team played well, but just didn't get any breaks. The second game saw the team suffer a 9 - 4 defeat at the hands of a very good Niagara Falls outfit, but have managed to turn things around in the third game on Monday afternoon against Barrie, when a superb draw to the button by Russell McCabe saw the Perth team home by a single shot.
2nd April 2008 - Curling Team Update: News gets better with the Perth rink on a roll with 4 wins and two defeats prior to our third last game. A last rock draw to the button by Bill Duncan saw off the rink from Florida. They followed up with an amazing fightback against the USA Madison team where they were 5 shots down with 2 ends to play only to take a 4 count at the seventh end, followed by a steal of 3 at the last end, when Russell McCabe played a long raise to take an American shot off the button for another 3 count to win the game. This morning they met old rival Forfar, and after a close encounter, Bill Duncan was left with an open hit to seal the 6-4 victory. After being on a roll of 4 victories, the Perth team's run came to a shuddering halt, surprisingly losing to the English outfit from Berwick-on-Tweed last evening.
3rd April 2008 - Curling Team Update: Perth however have bounced back this morning with a demolition of Clarkesville, USA who conceded after 6 ends. This left the team along with 5 other rinks looking for the final two places in the semi-finals. They met Stratford in a winner takes all match as they held the same record of 5 wins and three defeats. Unfortunately, Perth got off to a bad start losing a 3 at the first end,and it was an uphill struggle thereafter, with Stratford eventually running out 9 - 4 winners. This along with the other results left 4 teams on 5 wins and four defeats, but one was eliminated as they had lost to all of those teams still involved leaving three teams to play off for a final slot in the semis final. Florida are playing Niagara Falls in the first play off game, and Perth meet the winners at 8.30pm local time.
4th April 2008 - Curling Team Update: Bad News - Perth didn't quite make the semifinals as they lost a very close play off game to Niagara Falls eventually coming off the ice after 10pm - a very long day. However, we feel quite good about things finishing with 5 wins and 4 defeats record, and having managed to beat Madison in the round robin.
All in all a great week of Rotary curling and fellowship in a fabulous facility with great swinging ice - 6 foot for a draw, and everybody is now looking forward to Perth 2010. The Brantford committee did a great job, so we will have a lot to live up to, but I am sure that we will manage to put on a great show in Perth.
5th April 2008 - World Rotary Curling Update: Niagara Falls went on to win their semi final against Forfar, but lost to Madison, USA on the last stone of a very high quality and exciting final.
Perthshire Rotary Curling League: Season 2007/2008
In the penultimate game of the 2008/9 Perthshire Rotary Curling League,the Rotary Club of Perth rink of Hamish Milne, Bill Duncan, Russell McCabe and Alay Milne scored a big three at the last end of their game against this year's Rams Head finalists Perth Kinnoull, to edge them them out by one shot. This moved the team up the league towards the middle with 6 points, and should mean that we won't be the recipient of the Wooden Spoon.
The final League fixture of the season, saw Sandy Pearson with Ian Macmillan, George Thomson and Robin King snatch a draw from the jaws of victory, leading 9-3 with two ends to go, they managed to lose two three counts to peel with Dunblane. This left Perth with 7points in the final league placings, but well behind this year's winners Crieff who retained the league title, whilst Pitlochry had their worst season for many a year picking up the Wooden Spoon for the first time since 1971.
The runners up from this year and last years play off to become the 3rd team to represent Scotland at this year's Rotary World Curling Championship to be held in Brantford, Ontario in late March. As Perth have been runners up both years to Forfar they automatically take this place and a team from our club will play in the Rotary World Curling Championship Finals, joining the two Forfar rinks for a trip to Canada.
The Rotary Club of Perth are Hosts of the Rotary World Curling Championships in 2010, see World Curling.
Rotary Club of Perth - Curling
Ram's Head Trophy Winners - 1987 Ram's Head Trophy Winners - 2003 Hamish Milne, Fergus Young, Robin King and Peter Hamilton Back: Steve Hall and Hamish Milne.
Front: Russell Keiller and Bill Duncan