The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Canada not the only team to beat at Worlds
Canada haven’t won the Worlds since 2008
Apart from Anna’s luggage getting lost, we’re in good shape for the start of the World Championships this weekend. The event is in Swift Current but we’ve spent the first couple of days over here in Canada training in Regina.
Like I say, everything’s gone well, practice has been great, we’ve adapted to the time change and we’re confident about our chances.
Usually at this point I would be writing that our main rival will be Jennifer Jones or Rachel Homan.
But this year neither has won the Canadian national championship.
Rachel didn’t get out of her province and Jennifer lost in the semi-finals.
Chelsea Carey is their team’s skip and she’s got quite an experienced team behind her. It’s her first Worlds but the rest of them have been there, done that and got the T-shirt.
We’ve played against them a couple of times already so they’re by no means an unknown quantity.
Our head-to-head is the last game of the round-robin stage, so it could be really important in terms of getting to the play-offs.
Let’s face it, Canada probably have about 10 teams who would be capable of winning the Worlds.
But there’s no way you can go into the tournament thinking ‘if we beat Canada, we’ll take the gold’. There’s far too much strength in depth in the women’s game for that.
Of the 10 other teams, there are a few who will fancy their chances of winning.
There’s a statistic that would probably shock a lot of people (myself included) – Canada haven’t won the Worlds since 2008.
It’s their longest gold drought since the competition was first played back in 1979.
That’s a bit of pressure on Chelsea because, knowing how proud the Canadians are of their curling record, they will hate to have a record like that.
The skip of the Swiss team won the Worlds two years ago – the last time she took part. In fact, Swiss teams have taken three golds out of the last four.
And then there’s the Swedes and Russians, who also have impressive medal collections.
But I wouldn’t swap our team for anybody else’s, and we know that if we play our best game we’ve got a great chance of ending a run of silver and bronzes by getting the gold and taking us a big step closer to the Olympics.
The future’s bright
The junior men’s team did a great job in winning their Worlds last weekend.
And I’ve got to mention two local schools who contested the final of the Scottish Schools Championship. Well done to Perth Academy, who beat Perth High. The academy has got a good tradition of producing curlers.
It doesn’t seem long ago that I was still playing in the juniors, and the age of players breaking through gets younger all the time.
Hopefully the game is in good shape for the next generation.
Time for a curling awards night
Before we flew out to Canada I was invited to the Scottish Golf Awards. It’s always a good night and this year’s was no different.
I think there were about 650 people there and I presented the team of the year award. I wish curling had a night like that in our calendar where we recognise our success.
From the juniors through to the seniors we consistently bring back medals for Scotland so it’s not as if we don’t have things to celebrate.