A New Year and new rules.  With the Omicron variant of Covid running rampant through the land we are lucky that curling has been permitted to continue after the holidays.  However, it is conditional on stricter precautions, the most notable being that we are limited to one sweeper at a time taking turns while the opposing team are not allowed to sweep their opponents’ stone out of the house.  This latter measure is a particular source of frustration – it’s amazing just how difficult it is for skips and thirds to restrain themselves to remaining behind the hack.

For this game Covid was also impacting on team numbers.  Although Team Kinnaird was fortunate to have Steve Laux freshly back from quarantine, Keith Walker was still in solitary and despite everyone’s best efforts, no sub could be found.  So then there were three.  Fortunately though, Team Auld remained happy and healthy at full strength.  

It may be somewhat of a cliché but the final result, at 10 points to three in favour of Team Kinnaird, was not perhaps an entirely fair reflection of the relative performances of the protaganists.  Indeed, a feature of the game was skip Auld’s prowess at the promotion of stones, with him showing unerring accuracy albeit perhaps not always at the ideal weight.

Indeed, shot of the night, if not the season, came in the middle of the game (your reporter is struggling to recall exactly which end).  Alice was comfortably lying three blue stones to the good in the centre and benefitting from a wall of stones in front by way of protection.  But in a do-or-die attempt, Dougie sent a stone rattling down the rink into his only yellow in the wall which in turn cannoned into the centre to send the blues flying and leaving him lying one.  Oh for a video replay.  The only slight dampener on the glory came with Alice’s next shot, an attempted draw down the margins of the sheet which even she would admit saw a lucky bounce to beat Dougie’s stone.

But despite the derring-do from Team Auld, including another couple of fine tap-ups from their skip, the match slipped away from them after the fourth end.  Until then it had been pretty much even-stevens, but Team Kinnaird’s steady performance more than outweighed any fireworks from the opposition.  Each of the subsequent ends resulted in three points for Team Kinnaird to give them another boost in the league following their slow start to the season.

John W.

With the Thirds League games completed last week, this last Holyrood match before the Christmas break saw a return to the normal league team order for Teams C & D (Teams A and B having already returned to normal last Friday 17th).  That said, for Team Kinnaird, Alice’s rota meant that she was down to miss this particular game and John W was nominated  to wave the skipping broom once more.  Also Kay was unable to play but her call for a sub had been answered by the ever-helpful Colin Appleby to play lead.  With Keith Walker second and Steve Laux at third, the team was raring to go. 

Team Morrison were in their normal league-leading configuration with skip Deemo none the worse for his fall on the ice last week, notwithstanding the now rapidly healing wound on his napper.

What transpired was pretty nail-biting stuff.  It could have been anybody’s game as the teams were remarkably closely matched throughout the evening.  It finished in a single point victory for Team Kinnaird that was only decided at the very end of the game, much to their relief.

Things started on remarkably sticky ice.  It took until something like the eleventh stone of the first end before anything got as far as the house, thanks to James Hoss Mackintosh who managed to draw around the veritable wall of stones lying up front.  Team Kinnaird were unable to do anything about this thanks to clever guarding from Deemo so it was one up to Team Morrison.

And this was the pattern of the next two ends with single points to Team Morrison.  Although Team Kinnaird had started to get to grips with ice and put the odd stone in the house, Deemo was on deadly form and any slot left open resulted in the removal of his unfortunate opponent’s stone.

But the boot was on the other foot in the fourth with a match-levelling three for Team Kinnaird. Two up by the final stone of the end and with the hammer, skip Waterlow managed a draw for the third point to level the match.

The fifth end was unlucky for Team Morrison. They had managed to move Team Waterlow’s blue stone that had been lying shot just sufficiently to lie.  With several stones of both colours grouped near the centre, John’s attempt to shift the balance came to naught.  But Deemo’s final stone aimed at protecting the centre came in just a little too hot – after the dust had settled, it was two stones to Team Kinnaird. 

All Team Kinnaird had to do now was play a defensive couple of ends to hold the match.  Fat chance!  The sixth end was a disaster for them.  With a stone in the centre, John was guarding madly – but didn’t guard the narrowest of slots into the centre figuring that it would be too difficult for Deemo to thread a stone through.  However, Deemo showed just how wrong that assumption was – with unerring accuracy, the blue was removed leaving him lying three valuable stones.

So into the final end, it was 6-5 to Team Morrison and all to play for. Accurate shots from Team Kinnaird resulted in them building a couple of stones in the centre which became well-guarded.  And despite Deemo’s best efforts, that was how they remained, John perhaps wisely deciding not to play the very last stone of the match. The final result 7-6 to Team Kinnaird.

John W.