[ritchiebaby]

The final chance to qualify for the World Junior Curling Championship 2025 will begin this week in Lohja, Finland at the men’s World Junior-B Curling Championships 2024. The event will run from Sunday 8 December until Friday 13 December where the three medallists will secure their World Junior spots.

Teams will be placed in three groups where the top two teams in each group, plus the two third overall ranked teams with the better Draw Shot Challenge, qualify for the quarter-finals. Teams will then be ranked 1-8 to determine the quarter-final matchups. Group play will end on Thursday 12 December at 12:00 with the quarter-finals beginning later that day at 19:00. The semi-finals will be played the following day 13 December at 10:00 and the medal games following at 16:00.

Group A: Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Korea, Latvia, Philippines, Poland and Sweden
Group B: Australia, China, Japan, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Türkiye
Group C: Chinese Taipei, Czechia, England, New Zealand, Slovakia, Switzerland and Ukraine


England are represented by Matthew Waring (Skip), Callum McLain (Third), Benjamin Gillard (Second and Vice-skip), Troy Caunce (Lead) and Benjamin Holcombe (Alternate). Also pictured is coach James Whittle with a grown-up's beard. Callum plays at my local Ice Rink, is determined to sweep as hard as Hammy and Lammie and will be looking to be involved in the later stages of this competition.

They play Slovakia at 12 noon tomorrow with games against Chinese Taipei at 7am on Monday, then Czechia at 5pm on Monday.

[ritchiebaby]

England opened with a good, solid win over Slovakia by 7-2 after 7 ends. They were never behind and finished the game after scoring 3 shots in the 6th end when they were 3-2 ahead.

[ritchiebaby]

England continued their great start to the competition by comfortably beating Chinese Taipei 10-1 after 6 ends, scoring 7 shots without reply in the first 3 ends. They then beat Czechia by 7-3 after 7 ends in another game where they led all the way, with only one slight hiccup, when Matthew Waring had to draw the shot in the 7th end with 3 counting stones against him. Nae bother!

With 3 wins out of 3, England play Ukraine tomorrow at 7am and then Switzerland at 5pm, which will probably be the toughest test in Group C, the Swiss having been relegated from the A Division earlier this year.

[ritchiebaby]

England slipped up today by losing 3-5 against Ukraine this morning and then 5-7 against Switzerland just now.

In each game their use of last stone made all the difference. Against Ukraine they had last stone in the 4th end but lost a single shot and that was the margin of the loss (-1 instead of +1). Similarly against Switzerland they had last stone on 3 occasions and scored 2 shots, but lost 5 shots. When Switzerland had last stone thrice, the Swiss managed to score 2 shots and lost 3 shots, but that again was the losing margin (5 against 7).

And that, my friends, is how easy it is to let games slip away. It happens all the time and it can happen through one shot being misplayed/misjudged by any of the players.

It's now increasingly difficult for England to qualify, as it looks like Switzerland and Ukraine will make it from Group C. They must beat New Zealand to have a chance of finishing 3rd, with the 2 best 3rd placed teams qualifying by way of their Draw Shot Challenge. Their score will be the best in their Group, but have the disadvantage of several other teams in the other Groups being placed higher.

England have a day off tomorrow and play against New Zealand on Thursday at the ungodly hour of 6am (8am Finnish time), by when they will know exactly what they will have to do, as the others will have caught up on their outstanding games. For example, a few teams have played 5 games, but China and Roumania have only played 3.

[ritchiebaby]

As the song says, I can see clearly now. Firstly England must beat New Zealand at 6am tomorrow and, as Ukraine meet Czechia at the same time, it looks like they will be guaranteed a tie for either 2nd or 3rd in Group C.

Thankfully, Japan and China have already qualified from Group B with the 3rd placed team, Turkiye, much worse off than England in the Draw Shot Challenge. In Group A, Korea, Poland and Sweden are all tied for 1st place, with only Korea having a better DSC score than England. Poland and Sweden play each other tomorrow at 10am, so it looks like one of them will be in 3rd place.

[ritchiebaby]

England did exactly what they needed to do in a tense game against New Zealand, eventually winning 5-4 after getting their noses in front in the 3rd end and hanging on for dear life. They managed to be the best of the 3rd placed teams with Korea and Sweden leading Group A, Japan and China doing the same in Group B and Switzerland and Ukraine qualifying from Group C. Turkey were 2nd in the DSC and completed the final eight.

Unfortunately they were drawn against unbeaten Japan tonight and went down 3-6 after a valiant performance, never being in front but always being within striking distance. Ther were only 3 Far East teams left in the last eight and they all made the Semi-finals at the expense of European teams.

The Semi-final Draw is Switzerland v China and Japan v Korea, both games at 8am tomorrow. The Finals are at 2pm tomorrow.

All in all, England might have done better with a good draw, but they did as well as most people expected and gave an excellent account of themselves. Roll on next year!

[ritchiebaby]

And now it's the turn of the girls. The 21 teams have been split into three groups where they will compete in a round-robin format, starting tomorrow. The top two from each group, plus the two third overall ranked teams with the better Draw Shot Challenge, will qualify for the quarter-finals. Teams will then be ranked 1-8 to determine the quarter-final matchups.

The group stages will finish on Wednesday 18 December, with quarter-finals commencing later that day. The semi-finals will then take place at 8am the following day Thursday 19 December, and the medal games in the evening at 4pm.

Group A: Australia, Brazil, Denmark, England, Finland, Scotlandand Türkiye
Group B: China, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and United States
Group C: Austria, Czechia, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, New Zealand and Poland

ENGLAND
Lina Opel (Fourth and Vice-skip), Marianna Ward (Third and Skip), Anna MacDougall (Second), Helena Kiggell (Lead) and Phoenix Davies (Alternate)

SCOTLAND
Callie Soutar (Skip), Eva Hare (Third), Holly Clemie (Second), Alison Hamilton (Lead) and Cara Davidson (Alternate)

Tomorrow's games are England v Australia at 6am and then v Finland at 4pm. Scotland play Denmark at 6am, followed by Turkiye at 4pm.

[ritchiebaby]

England started off poorly against Australia, being 3-6 down after 3 ends, but when they got their act together they won the next 5 ends to triumph 11-6. Their second game was much tighter, winning 7-3 against Finland, but they were always in control.

Scotland beat Denmark 10-4, and although the score looked one-sided, it took an unlikely score of 5 shots in the 7th end to make sure of victory. They cruised through their next game against Turkiye, winning 9-2 after 6 ends.

A 6am start will see the first defeat for either England or Scotland in THE local derby. Their second games tomorrow have England playing Brazil and Scotland playing Australia at 2pm.

[ritchiebaby]

The Auld Enemy, England, suffered their first defeat against Scotland by 5-8 this morning. Once again, one end made all the difference as the Scots scored 5 shots in the 2nd end and then kept the game tight all the way. The English team competed hard and actually scored five ends to the Scots three. However England recovered well this afternoon and beat previously unbeaten Brazil by 6-5, again outscoring their opposition by 5 ends to 3.

They now have two games left, against Turkiye tomorrow at 10am and Denmark on Wednesday, also at 10am. With only one defeat so far, there is a good chance they could qualify for the last eight as 1st or 2nd in the Group.

Scotland had a much easier time of it against Australia, winning 14-2 after only 6 ends and restricting the Aussies to one scoring end.

The unbeaten Scots have two games tomorrow, against Finland at 10am and Brazil at 6pm to complete their Round-Robin games.

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BACK ROW - Helena Kiggell, Marianna Ward, Anna MacDougall.
FRONT ROW - Phoenix Davies, Lina Opel.

Hopefully that's right, apologies if it's not.

[ritchiebaby]

England had their second defeat this morning, this time against Turkiye, by 2-12 after the minimum 6 ends. They got off to a slow start and then crumbled, losing 4 shots in each of the 5th and 6th ends. England's poor record in the Draw Shot Challenge means that they must beat Denmark tomorrow at 10am to have any chance of progressing in 2nd place - 3rd is no good. If Turkiye win tomorrow against Brazil, then they will also come into the reckoning.

Scotland, on the other hand, made a quick start and ran out comfortable winners against Finland by 9-4 after 7 ends. This made them the first qualifiers for the last eight. In a much tighter game against Brazil, they eventually came through to win 6-3, again after 7 ends to finish unbeaten in the Group.