LIR – Opening Bonspiel – Winners/Losers

15/09/15 – AH 

Well, the curling season has started again and the Opening Bonspiel was held at LIR this week.

All 6 rinks of the ice rink was used – 12 teams in total and the ice was absolutely wonderful.  It was very keen and you simply had to place the stone for it to travel to the other end of the ice rink. It was fun to play on.

Anne Hood (as LIR committee member) and Alistair Mackintosh (representing Lanark CC) were opposing 2^nd  players at the first end.  Anne had placed a guard stone and Alistair’s stone seemed light on delivery but it just skimmed past the guard and was swept into the middle of the house to take shot due to the quality of the keen ice.  Quite a first shot for the start of the season.  Alistair stated “this will not last” – he was referring to the quality of the ice but Anne was referring to his delivery when she replied “That’s for sure!”.  This reflected the good banter that took place during the evening also.

The ice rink has lost income as Asda are no longer renting part of our car park – the Chairman stated that there is an expected reduction of £45,000 and encouraged all clubs to keep membership numbers up: encouraged members to introduce more people to curling so that clubs can maintain their levels of rinks thus selling ice.  There is a need to sell more daytime ice.  The ice rink is now highly dependant on curling income so we are all asked to help in any way we can.

The changing rooms have been refreshed with a new coat of paint and the lounge chairs have been recovered.  All in all, the fabric of our ice rink remains to a high quality.

So, have a good season everybody.  It’s remarkable how we find our curling feet so quickly 😛