Perth Masters curling set to be a cracker

Places for the event could have been filled twice over, such was its appeal to the world’s finest curlers.

The countdown has already started to January’s prestigious Perth Masters which will welcome a sold-out field of both men and women.

Labelled as the big weekend of world curling, Dewars Centre is again playing popular host with action running from January 2-5, 2020.

Chairman of the event, Pete Loudon, was taken aback by the number and quality of entries.

“We’ve ended up with 24 men’s and 15 ladies’ teams,” he explained to the Perthshire Advertiser this week.

“There’s a different format for the men, with four sections of six. The women will be three sections of five.

“In terms of the quality of field, it’s really good again. All of the top Scottish teams are playing.

“There’s a couple of top Canadian teams and we also have Team De Cruz from Switzerland.

“With the ladies, again we have the top Scottish teams as well as some of the top Europeans. We also have a team from China and Korea.

“We’ve taken all the entries we can and, believe it or not, could have had the same again. It was unbelievable the number of entries we had.

“It’s a free weekend on the calendar for a number of teams and gives them the opportunity to earn some qualifying points for Grand Slam events.”

Pete is grateful to the continuing support of Mercure Hotel, Perth Honda, Live Active Leisure and Perth and Kinross Council.

He believes the team effort displayed from all parties involved helps to keep the tournament at the forefront of European and world curling.

Pete added: “I’m delighted that we’ve managed to bring all this together. It’s the earliest we could host the event.

“Dewars Centre is usually shut on January 2 but we’ve been working with Live Active Leisure to make sure they can help from the facility point of view.

“It’s a real team effort with all the staff who have done this over a number of years, which helps our cause.”

Organisers are hopeful of increased broadcast coverage to kick-off the new year in style, with BBC Alba set to pitch up in Perth again.