[ritchiebaby]

With this season’s BKT Tires World Women’s Championship now successfully concluded in Sydney, Canada, the World Curling action now moves to Europe. The final Women's results were GOLD - Canada, SILVER - Switzerland, BRONZE - Korea. Scotland finished a disappointing 8th with a team of Rebecca Morrison, Jennifer Dodds, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson, plus Gina Aitken as Alternate.

The LGT World Men’s Curling Championship 2024 is set to be staged at the IWC Arena in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, from Saturday 30 March to Sunday 7 April. With Switzerland gaining participation as hosts, the other teams qualified are Scotland, Sweden, Italy, Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Czechia, Canada, Korea, Japan, United States and New Zealand.

Dangerous prediction time (dangerous because any one of about seven teams could win it) -
My final four would be ;-
Canada: Skip Brad Gushue – a world champion and three-time world silver medallist – leads his team to a third successive appearance.
Scotland: the defending champions and Olympic silver medallists, who are also the current European champions, skipped by Bruce Mouat on his fifth appearance. You'll have seen photos of the Scottish team of Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan many times before, so I'll not post another one.
Sweden: the Olympic champions, skipped by Niklas Edin, who has won this title six times and is making a 13th appearance.
Switzerland: last year’s bronze medallists, skipped by Yannick Schwaller, who is making a third appearance.
These teams could well be replaced by any from Italy, Norway and United States, possibly even newcomers Germany.

There will be 20 sessions of round-robin play, commencing on Saturday 30 March and concluding on Friday 5 April. This will determine the top six-ranked teams. The teams ranked top and second will proceed directly to the semi-finals. For teams ranked third to sixth, qualification games will take place at 10:00 on Saturday 6 April (3rd v 6th and 4th v 5th). Semi-finals will follow on the same day at 16:00. The bronze medal game and then the gold medal final will be staged on Sunday 7 April, at 10:00 and 15:00, respectively.

Scotland's opening games are against Korea at 13.00 tomorrow, United States at 18.00 tomorrow, at 12.00 against Canada on Sunday and at 17.00 against Italy on Sunday.

[ritchiebaby]

Just finished watching Scotland defeat Italy by 8-3 after 7 ends after an Italian concession. It's strange to report that the game was on the Scottish Championship section on the BBC Sports website - not on TV, just the website. If anyone is interested, the games against Germany, Japan and Sweden will also be on the website. Eurosport will also be showing various games.

I'm maybe glad I missed the game against Canada, which ended in a 4-8 defeat for the Scots, also on the website. Yesterday saw a good start for Scotland with wins over Korea by 10-3 and United States, also by 10-3.

The Scots are in 3rd place with 3 wins after 4 games, behind both Canada and Sweden on 3 wins after 3 games. Scotland play New Zealand at 13.00 tomorrow and on Tuesday, they play Germany at 13.00 (see above).

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland eased to a convincing victory over New Zealand by 8-2 after only 6 ends. They now sit 2nd in the table behind Sweden after Canada lost in the same session.

You can tune into the BBC website at 13.00 tomorrow for the game against Germany.

[ritchiebaby]

The top of the table is becoming more and more congested as we get to the halfway stage. More correctly, it's the minor qualification placings that are hard to separate.

Scotland fell back a little today, losing 7-8 to my dark horse, Germany. Bruce Mouat just missed a double take-out to leave the German skip a fairly simple draw shot for victory. Somehow the BBC thinks that this was a surprise defeat, but 3 of the German team are World Junior Silver Medallists.

Today's results see Sweden in 1st place, still unbeaten on 6 wins. They are followed by Canada on 5 wins out of 6 and Germany on 5 wins out of 7. Sharing 4th place on 4 wins out of 6 games played are Italy, Scotland and Switzerland, with United States having 4 wins out of 7. Only New Zealand and Korea can be considered out of it, neither having won a game.

The Scots play Czechia at 08.00 tomorrow and Japan at 18.00 (televised on BBC Sports website and i-Player).

[ritchiebaby]

A much better day for Scotland with 2 wins. The first was over Czechia by 6-3 and although the score was fairly tight, the Scots were always in control of the game. The second game was a 7-5 win over Japan, again a tight game, with the Scots in control only after scoring 3 shots in the 8th end to give them a 2-shot cushion. Scotland made sure they only lost 1 shot in the 9th end, ensuring they had last stone in the last end, resulting in a comfortable draw shot to secure the win.

Sweden are still unbeaten after 8 games, leading from Canada with 7 wins and then Scotland and Switzerland on 6 wins. Germany also have 6 wins, but have played 9 games. Following them on 5 wins are Italy and Norway with United States on 4 wins.

Tomorrow sees the Scots play Netherlands at 08.00 and Switzerland at 18.00.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland had another 2 wins today to safely qualify. They edged past Netherlands this morning by 5-3, again scoring 3 shots to give themselves a cushion for the remaining ends. Then they defeated Switzerland by 8-7 after an extra end this evening to see off dangerous opponents. Scotland had been 5-6 down at the 6th end but staged a well-managed recovery to pull through.

They are now 2nd equal with Canada on 8 wins, behind still unbeaten Sweden on 10 wins. These 3 have qualified for the later stages with the remaining 3 places to be filled. Italy lead the rest on 7 wins, followed by Germany and Switzerland on 6 wins. United States on 5 wins still have a slim chance, but must rely on other results going their way.

Scotland's games tomorrow are against Norway at 08.00 and Sweden at 18.00 to finish the Round Robin games. The final game against Sweden is on the BBC website and i-Player. The Qualification games on Saturday are yet to be determined with 3rd to 6th playing off to reach the Semi-finals. 1st and 2nd go directly into the Semis on Saturday afternoon.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland seem to be coping well with their many "squeaky-bum-time" challenges with another 2 really tight wins. Firstly they beat Norway 9-8 after an extra end, because they lost 2 shots in the 10th end, and secondly beating Sweden 8-6 with a last stone take-out after losing 3 shots in the 9th end when 4 shots ahead - stupidly trying double take-outs when a decent draw would have been easier (twice) IMO.

Anyway Scotland, having finished 3rd, now have to play United States in one of the qualifying games tomorrow morning at 09.00. The winners will play Canada in the second Semi-final at 15.00 tomorrow. In the other qualification game, Germany play Italy, also at 09.00, and the winners of that will play Sweden in the first Semi-final at 15.00.

I'm absolutely certain Scotland know what they are doing, but to me, they look too keen to play spectacular shots when a simpler one might be the better choice.

[ritchiebaby]

I now know why Scotland prefer the spectacular shots - it's because they're not that great at playing draw shots (well, not great at the business end of the game). More of that later.

They did get off to a great start this morning, beating the good old USofA by 8-4, using last stone successfully in 3 successive ends culminating in scoring 3 shots in the 9th end to silence the Americans. This set up a Semi-final game against Canada this afternoon, with Sweden and Italy playing in the other one.

After a pretty decent start, Scotland were tying at 3-3 after 5 ends. However the wheels came off the wagon at the next end when Canada scored 3 shots following a poor draw shot by Bruce Mouat, a shot he would normally have pulled off with perfect weight. Even worse, in the 8th end Bruce had another attempted draw shot and his stone did not even get as far as the rings, leaving Canada a simple shot to score 3 again. The final score of 4-9 with 2 ends still to play must have surprised even the Canadians.

Still it's time to regroup for tomorrow's Bronze Medal Game against Italy at 09.00 tomorrow with no time to dwell on what might have been. Scotland have already beaten Italy earlier in the week, but that will mean nothing for tomorrow's game. In the Gold Medal Game, Sweden play Canada at 14.00 tomorrow afternoon.

As far as my predictions were concerned, I did predict 3 of the last 4, with Italy replacing Switzerland from my list. Hopefully the Scots will finish 3rd out of 4 teams to win a medal.

[ritchiebaby]

The old problem with giving away avoidable shots reared it's ugly head again this morning, when Scotland lost 6-7 to Italy in an extra end. The Scots were 6-3 up going into the last end, but lost 3 shots after Bruce Mouat tried to raise his own stone to take out an Italian one, instead of drawing up to that stone. He only succeeded in taking his own one out, leaving Italy an easy promotion to take the 3 shots to tie the game. In the extra end, Scotland got into a real guddle at the front, leaving Bruce with a difficult double take-out with last stone. He did get the right angle but didn't move the Italian stone out. To be fair to him he did draw a perfect shot in the 1st end with Italy lying 5 shots.

In the Gold Medal Game, Sweden saw off Canada by 6-5, when Niklas Edin played an excellent final stone to draw the shot against 3 shots for Canada. It was a superb game throughout between the top 2 teams in the Round Robin and the Gold was won for an amazing 7th time by Niklas Edin and Oskar Eriksson. The other team members, Christoffer Sundgren has only won it 6 times and Rasmus Wranaa a mere 5 times. 

GOLD - Sweden
SILVER - Canada
BRONZE - Italy