Pie Encounters of the Third Kind

 In a top of the table clash between the holders, Team Wyllie and the young upstarts Team Wood (well one

of us is young and the rest are upstarts) the destination of the 'Thirds' pies were decided.  With skip Wood deciding that they needed ends above everything else, the game commenced. The Wood squad settled their nerves with a huge five (pipe down team Niven, it wasn't a seven but we were playing for ends!) in the first end.  Thereafter Team Wyllie tried hard but it was one of those nights where they always seemed to get a bad rub.

So, its Congratulations, and a good supper, to Mike Wood, Graeme Maguire, Pam Clark and Adam Hicks for lifting the Thirds trophy.

Seven Up

 A SEVEN  !!!!

Pairs 21/22

Being absent, this should be an 'interesting review'.

The brave players that ventured forth have caused our club engravers difficulties, with not one but two players picking up their first club silverware.  The convenor, Mike Wood, ran a five team round robin.  Much to his delight this produced a clear winner with Julia Mackey and Ian Campbell going undefeated to pick up the Alexander C Nicoll Tankard.  One place behind them were David Wyllie and, on her club debut, Sarah Ford who only lost to the overall winners.  They collect the Warren Harris (who he ?) Tankard, normally reserved for the 'Low Road winners'.

Congratulations to our Pieless winners and I hope that someone has told Sarah that as a winner she will have to become a full time member next year ;-)

Individual Points

Following a very rapid exit from the Haddington Pairs, John Good and Graeme Maguire headed over to join the other 6 players for the Aberlady Points Competition.  John elected to play while Graeme took a supervisory position to ensure that the competition ran smoothly (at least that was his excuse).

It was heartening that four out of the eight players were playing in our Points for the first time, one of them coming a creditable second !  The same could not be said for our two 'regular' skips who only managed fourth and fifth places.

The overall event was low scoring this year which, I'm told, was down to some 'tricky' ice.  This is possibly contradicted by the winner improving their 'best ever' score (for the second year running) by a total of nine points and moving up from their best placing of fourth to record a truly impressive win.  Not only that, they were also the only player not to record a blank and only one of two players to record an eight !

So it is Congratulations to Pam Clark who wins her first Points Competition !

Second and Third places went to former 'New Stones' members.

Honorable mention also goes to Ian Campbell, who although finishing sixth was in SECOND place after 5 exercises (one point behind John McOmish).

And now the Mid Season Break

 That is our 2021 schedule complete and the Thirds Competition hangs on a knife edge.  The defending champion, David Wyllie sits atop the table with a two end and three shot lead over his only challenger, Mike Wood.  Meanwhile, at the more precarious end of the league Team Howard also have a two end, but one shot, deficit to Team Niven.  The crucial first round top and bottom of the table clashes are due to be played Thursday 20th January.

BEFORE that is our annual POINTS COMPETITION on Saturday 15th January.  This is an individual competition and is open to ALL members, including reserves.  This would be a great chance to brush off the rust and prepare yourselves before the vital clashes.

 

Have a great Christmas

See you in 2022

Aberlady Xmas Bombshell 2021

After emergency Covid Committee meetings the Christmas Bonspiel/Bombshell was held with diminished numbers.  Big thanks go out to David Wyllie who not only agreed to skip at very short notice but was then lumbered with only one teammate.  Big thanks also to Rachel MacRae who made her club debut at this much anticipated event - A daunting task ?

This years theme was the NHS and I can report that No-one was fined for the lack of 'fancy dress', although one player claiming that their outfit was as a hospital visitor was perhaps stretching it a bit! (As was the President's attempt at gluing 'prescription bags' onto her lab-coat)

The usual mayhem ensued while skips tried to interpret Graeme's rules.  It was perhaps alarming to find out that some of the regulars seemed to perform better with the delivery sticks and once again different skips took aggressive or passive interpretations to the rules.  Perhaps the most amusing 'new' event was the 'silent' curling with players trying to make their opposition laugh.  John Good became unstuck when he could not avoid an audible exclamation (Arthur Conan-Doyle would have said 'ejaculation there but I don't sink to those depths) after a good shot had been played.

Team Good let Team Wood have a four end head start before they started scoring, then mad something of a late recovery taking 3 out of the last 4 ends. Meanwhile, the Maguire and Wyllie squads were trading ends.  The final scores were the closest in recent Bombshell history with both cards showing 7 - 3 wins for the Wood and Maguire trios.  Graeme generously didn't disqualify the Wood Team for their incorrectly completed card and declared Mike Wood, Pam Clark and David MacKay as winners (They had failed to deduct 0.5 shots for the above mentioned John Good utterance).  The runners-up were Graeme Maguire Rosie Clark and Ian Campbell.  

It is often said in events like this that there are no losers and that 'curling' was truly the winner, however with these rules, I'm not sure that would be fair.

The afternoon was concluded with the usual enjoyable drinks and first club supper this season.

Thirds - underway

 With one skip, 'doing a Mike' and arriving late the Thirds got underway with the three 'man' Howard Squad being skipped by Julia against the enthusiastic (All were at the ice rink at least 15 minutes before the game) Team Wood.  Even though he was early, the skip had misjudged the start time and was still tucking into his soup when the rest of the team were on the ice.  After cancelling his main course, he arrived in time to play his first end stones and take an early one shot lead.  

Team Howard then rebounded as Mike digested his tea taking the next two ends before the wheels came off. Two BIG ends to Team Wood (and the arrival of Stan) saw the sacking and demotion of the interim skip.  The remaining two ends were shared between the rinks.

The final score was recorded as 10 - 4 to the Wood rink.