Scottish Curling is pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2022 Scottish Curling Awards.
JUNIOR CURLER OF THE YEAR
James Craik
This season James joined an elite group when he won his third Scottish Curling Junior Championship, equalling the likes of Kyle Smith, Thomas Muirhead, Euan Kyle and Logan Gray. He may have even been the first to win four titles if the competition had taken place in the 2020-21 season. However, his greatest achievement to-date has to be winning the World Junior Curling Championship in Jönköping, Sweden in May.
James was also successful on the mixed doubles stage, winning the Scottish Curling Junior Mixed Doubles Championship with Robyn Munro and the Edinburgh Under 21 Mixed Doubles with Fay Henderson.
Isla Kay
At only 11 years old Isla has already shown great enthusiasm for playing, promoting, and developing the sport since taking it up just 3 years ago. As a member of Gogar Park Young Curlers she has attended as many sessions as possible, represented the club in all four Asham Under-14 Slam events (Forfar, Aberdeen, Perth, Dumfries), and keenly subbed in a number of competitive games at both Under 17 and Under 21 level.
Keen to develop her skills and support curling events, Isla attended the Curl Edinburgh’s Meet & Beat The Olympians session and Scottish Curling’s ‘This Girl Can Curl’ initiative where she won the social media challenge.
Her new Under-13s team went undefeated to clinch the title at the Perth Funspiel in March, and she also won ‘best shot of the competition’ in Stirling’s Mhairi McAughtrie Trophy.
During the Winter Olympics she volunteered to help with several media requests, including a very early start for BBC Breakfast and an appearance on Newsround where she promoted her love for curling’s mental and strategic challenges. She even celebrated her 11th birthday early by hosting a curling party just to enable 15 classmates to try curling before the season finished. She may not (yet) have a glittering CV of national success stories, but her enthusiasm for playing and promoting the sport are unrivalled.
Robyn Munro
At age 18, Robyn has cemented herself as one of the top junior curlers in Scotland by skipping her team to third place at the Scottish Curling Junior Championships, winning the Dumfries Under 21 Slam and finishing third in the Greenacres Under 21 Slam.
Halfway through the season and at short notice Robyn was invited to join British Curling as part of the performance foundation programme. Robyn took this opportunity and a change of position in her stride. She excelled and showed a real appetite for this new environment by winning the Consolation Cup at the Berne International Ladies competition and finished in fourth place at the Scottish Curling Women’s Championship.
To cap off her season, Robyn won the Scottish Curling Junior Mixed Doubles Championship and Scottish Curling Mixed Championship, with the latter earning her the right to represent Scotland at the World Mixed Curling Championship in October 2022.
GRASSROOTS COACH OF THE YEAR
Elspeth Burton
Elspeth, a UKCC Level 1 qualified coach, has worked tirelessly at The Peak, Stirling this season to promote curling, and has probably taken more sessions than any other coach. She has run the Wednesday morning Gateway (Virtual) club for a number of seasons now. This season she started with Bounce Back to Curling in August. She also committed to a large number of Try Curling and follow-up Beginner sessions and put her name forward to coach at disability inclusive sessions. She also helped with Military Vets sessions and one Sunday pulled a double shift to coach ‘basically beginner’ sessions in the afternoon and evening. Elspeth is described as being hardworking, patient, understanding and a fantastic coach on and off the ice, who is dedicated to promoting curling within the community.
Evelyn Reid
Evelyn, a UKCC Level 1 qualified coach, has coached Braehead Wheelchair Curling Club for eight years. She has developed practices to suit the various disabilities of those she coaches to ensure everyone has an equal chance to play and develop their individual game. Being a wheelchair user, Evelyn has continued to adapt her coaching methods, making use of online examples and coaches to demonstrate the standard delivery. She has also set up and run competitions for short curling (playing half length) to enable the more severely disabled wheelchair curlers to compete against one another and able bodied players.
Evelyn has completed 12 transformational leadership courses so she can broaden her understanding of the issues some people may encounter when trying to curl and she has put these skills into practice.
Evelyn, who covers her own travel expenses to Greenacres Curling Rink, is a dedicated, enthusiastic, selfless person who loves curling and helping to develop players of all ages and abilities.
Philip Ross
Philip, a relatively young curler in terms of membership years, having only joined in 2017, has been involved in many aspects of coaching in Forfar this season. As a UKCC Level 2 qualified coach his involvement has included coaching New Age (Floor) Curling sessions for schools and their teachers, the After Schools programme and Try Curling and Beginners sessions. Philip coaches the fundamental principles involved in delivery for beginners, through to more specific coaching for those with more experience.
This past year, with COVID-19 still in people’s minds, Philip developed a booking system for the After Schools programme which helped parents and coaches know who was attending in advance. This proved to be very helpful when all the coaches had COVID earlier in the year, as they were able to contact parents immediately.
Philip has also been a driving force in encouraging many newbies to join the local Gateway (Virtual) club, with many individuals looking to join next season. He has also attended and led all the Gateway club coaching sessions.
Philip has a calm approach to coaching and gets the best out of players no matter their level of ability or experience.
JUNIOR TEAM OF THE YEAR
Team Craik / Scotland: James Craik (skip), Angus Bryce (third), Scott Hyslop (second), Niall Ryder (lead), Jack Carrick (alternate) and Iain Watt (team coach)
Team Craik have consistently achieved outstanding results this season. They won the Asham Under 21 Slam Series, reached the semi-final stage of the Scottish Curling Men’s Championship and won the Scottish Junior Curling Championships. They finished the season by winning the World Junior Curling Championships in Jönköping, Sweden in May.
Team Henderson / Scotland: Fay Henderson (skip), Katie McMillan (third), Lisa Davie (second), Holly Wilkie-Milne (lead), Colin Morrison (team coach) and Robyn Mitchell (alternate for the World Junior Curling Championships)
Team Henderson had an excellent first season together on the European Junior Curling Tour, winning both events that they competed in; St Gallen and Prague. The team also won both Asham Slam events that they played in giving them an overall second place in the Asham Slam Series. The team won all but one all of their games at the Scottish Curling Junior Championships, finishing the week with a great performance and becoming the Junior Champions. The team had another remarkable week at the Scottish Curling Women’s Championship, finishing in top spot after the double round robin. In the Final, they took Team Morrison to the last end after being 5-2 down after just 3 ends, a very respectable game displayed by the junior side.
Winning the Scottish Curling Junior Championship qualified them to the World Junior B Curling Championships which allowed them the opportunity to qualify for the World Junior A Curling Championships. At the very last hurdle (when the team were ready to board their flight!) the B Championship was cancelled due to COVID-19 meaning their hopes of competing at the A’s were gone. However, in late March the team were offered a golden opportunity to compete at the A’s when Russia was ruled out of the competition by World Curling. The team represented Scotland at the Worlds in May. They put up a great fight and finished seventh overall in the table and on another week would have been strong enough to contest for a medal.
Team Strawhorn: Jack Strawhorn (skip), Hamish Gallacher (third), Kaleb Johnston (second), Struan Carson (lead) and Jamie Strawhorn (team coach)
In their first season playing together Team Strawhorn achieved all the goals they set and more. They finished runners up in the Asham Under 21 Slam Series, runners up in the Scottish Curling Junior Championships and were competitive at the Scottish Curling Men’s Championship, picking up wins against Team Craik and Team Paterson. All part of the National Academy, they showed dedication to the programme and trained hard throughout the season despite battling with COVID-19.
TEAM OF THE YEAR
Scottish Curling is pleased to award the 2022 Team of the Year Award to Eve Muirhead (skip), Vicky Wright (third), Jennifer Dodds (second), Hailey Duff (lead), Mili Smith (alternate) and Kristian Lindström (team coach) for their outstanding Olympic GOLD medal performance at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
ICE DIAMOND AWARD
Scottish Curling is pleased to award the 2022 Ice Diamond Award to Jenny Barr for her outstanding contribution and dedication to curling.
For most people, being on one club committee is more than enough, but for Jenny it’s probably easier to say what she doesn’t do. And somehow despite the time and effort she dedicates to curling, the stress never seems to affect her cheery self!
As Secretary for Murrayfield Curling Limited she is part of a small team of directors that make Curl Edinburgh successful. Helping to run a curling rink while juggling a career, having a family, and playing plenty of games must be a challenge, but that’s not all Jenny does! Somehow she also finds the time to be Club Secretary for Currie & Balerno Curling Club; manages the diary and ice allocation for Gogar Park’s club games and numerous super leagues; and puts an incredible amount of effort into helping run and promote the Gogar Park Young Curlers (GPYC) junior club.
For GPYC she runs the Junior committee, guiding youngsters through their first steps on a committee and giving them valuable experience for the future. She has been supporting the club through the challenges of lockdown by taking over Secretary/Treasurer duties to ensure consistency where juniors may otherwise have aged out or lost interest. This ensured the club stayed strong and returned to the ice this season with good membership numbers, which really developed in recent months thanks to Jenny’s tremendous effort in arranging all the media duties around the Winter Olympics Curl Edinburgh greatly benefited from a tonne of media exposure leading up to, throughout, and after the Olympics, mostly organised by Jenny. Whether it was helping various TV channels prepare for live and pre-recorded segments, encouraging curlers to come along very early in the morning to give live demos, or arranging individuals and teams for interviews, Jenny was constantly on the ball.
It’s impossible to exaggerate exactly how much Jenny (somehow) finds the time to dedicate to curling. And yet she’s also very modest about it all.
She also persuades curlers to come along and help coaches at Curl Edinburgh, encouraging them to get qualifications themselves if they enjoy the experience, and assists with finding ways for members of the local Gateway Club to progress into other clubs and events.
Jenny is a true diamond and Scottish Curling is delighted to recognise her contribution to the development and promotion of the sport by awarding her with this year’s Ice Diamond Award. Congratulations Jenny and thank you for all that you do!
MAKE YOUR VOTE COUNT!
The winner of the Junior Curler, Junior Team, and Grassroots Coach of the Year categories will be decided upon by members of Scottish Curling through the online membership database. Simply log in to your account at www.rcccmembers.org and you will presented with the poll on your Home Page.
If you share an email address with another member only one of you will be able to vote – one vote per email address. We suggest you contact Scottish Curling or your Club Secretary to register a unique email address if you wish to vote.
If you do not have access to your account, please email Scottish Curling at office@scottishcurling.org or contact your Club Secretary and they will grant you access so that you can cast your vote. Please note you can only vote online through the membership database.
Voting closes at midnight on Sunday, 24 July 2022.
We would like to thank everyone who submitted a nomination.
Note: Scottish Curling reserves the right to change, amend, modify, suspend, continue or terminate all or any part of the Scottish Curling Awards process at any time without notice. |
