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I've never had much time to do any research on the B-Championships being played in Lohja, Finland, since Wednesday and it's maybe just as well. England Men had a hard time of it, playing 6 games and losing all 6.

The Men's competition finished earlier today with China winning Gold, Italy Silver and Turkiye Bronze. These 3 have qualified for the A-Competition at the end of February in Fuessen, Germany. The full men’s field in qualification order is Scotland, Germany, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, United States, Korea, China, Italy and Türkiye.

The Women start their competition on Thursday and the 25 teams are divided into four groups - 3 groups of six teams and 1 group of seven teams. The round robin games run until the morning of Sunday 18 December. The quarter-finals take place on the same day in the afternoon. The semi-finals and the medal games take place on Monday 19 December. The three medal winning women’s teams qualify for the World Junior Curling Championships 2023.

The teams are from Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Korea, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Qatar, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Türkiye and Ukraine. England , 3 of whom have played together for the past 4 years, should have a better chance than the Men and Scotland should have an even better chance than that to qualify with their previous experience at this level.

England are represented by Mia Andell (Skip), Annabelle Martin (Vice-Skip), Anna Howey (2nd) and Phoenix Davies (Lead) and are in Group C.

Anna, Annabelle, Mia and Phoenix Image Credit: @team_andell IG

Scotland are drawn in Group D and are represented by Fay Henderson (Skip), Robyn Munro (Vice-Skip), Holly Wilkie-Milne (2nd), Laura Watt (Lead) and Amy Mitchell (Alternate).

England Women started off just like their Men, losing 2-10 against Spain, but receovered later to beat Slovenia 6-5. Yesterday they had a decent game against China, slipping to a 4-7 defeat because of one slack end. Then there was a similar display this morning against Denmark, eventually going down 6-8, with another loose end. This evening's game against Qatar gives them a great chance to get back to winning ways, as Qatar has only scored 7 shots in 4 games. Unfortunately even a big win will not be good enough for England to qualify.

Scotland are looking very efficient so far, with wins over Ukraine by 11-3, New Zealand by 6-3, Mongolia by 11-1 and Hungary by 5-3. These results are good enough to guarantee qualification for tomorrow's Quarter-finals, whatever the result of their game against Austria.

England did manage to defeat Qatar last night, but only by 6-4, meaning that the English team finished with 2 wins and 3 losses, finishing 4th in Group C.

Scotland continued on their winning ways today, by 7-4 this morning to comfortably qualify in 1st position in Group D with 5 wins from 5 games, and then by 7-5 against Czech Republic tonight in the Quarter-finals. Tomorrow morning they take on Turkiye in the first Semi-final, with Canada facing Korea in the other one. The Finals will be played in the afternoon with the 3 Medal-winning teams qualifying for the main event in Germany.

Qatar's in this as well?

Qatar are one of a few countries who are keen to make their mark in curling. I've been to their Ice Rink in Doha (in a shopping centre - Villaggio Mall).

Like Mongolia and Nigeria, they are on a hiding to nothing at international level, but they look on it as experience for the future and expanding sporting connections for both men and women.

Well I never!

Scotland won their Semi-final 7-2 against Turkiye, scoring 3 shots in the 7th end to snuff out any Turkish Delight, and ensuring qualification to the main Championships in April in Fuessen, Germany.

Canada won the other Semi-final by 6-4 against Korea, solely courtesy of scoring 4 shots in the 4th end to leave the Koreans too much to do at the last end. Canada have also guaranteed their qualification to the April Championships.

In the Crunchie game Scotland got off to a poor start against Canada this afternoon. The Scots were 2-5 down with 2 ends to go, but could only manage 2 single shots to fall just short by 4 shots to 5.

In the Bronze Medal match, an extraordinary scoreline of 7-7 after 4 ends, involving the Creme (Eggs) of Korea and Turkiye, and was matched by Korea scoring 3 shots in the 5th end. Turkiye fought back once again to level the scores at 10-10 with 1 end to go, but Korea scored 1 shot in the last end to win a wildly fluctuating game.

GOLD - Canada
SILVER - Scotland
BRONZE - Korea
These 3 teams now move on to the A-Championships, blowing a Raspberry (Cream) to Turkiye.

The competition proper gets underway on Saturday 25 February in Füssen in Germany (only just) and ends on Saturday 4 March with the Medal Games.

You've already seen the Women's Team from Scotland earlier in the thread, so there's no point in showing you again. They open their event with games at 9am against hosts Germany, then Latvia at 7.30pm. Sunday sees them play Japan at 2pm. Japan are the reigning Champions with virtually the same team again, while Sweden, Norway and Canada will be close behind.

The Scotland Men are Orrin Carson (Skip), Logan Carson (Vice-Skip), Archie Hyslop (Second), Charlie Gibb (Lead) and Alternate Scott Hyslop.


The Men start their competition against Canada on Saturday at 2pm, followed by Turkiye at 9am on Sunday, then Italy at 7pm. Scotland are the current Champions with a totally different team. Germany, Norway and Canada will be stern opponents.

Scotland Women got off to a successful start today with 2 wins. The first was a fairly routine 7-5 victory over Germany, the Scots never being behind all the way. The second was a tighter game against Latvia, being held to 5-5 with 1 end to go and eventually winning 8-5.

Similarly, the Scotland Men opened with a convincing 7-2 win over Canada. The score is slightly misleading in that the Scots only led 3-2 at the halfway stage, but took full control thereafter.

Once again Scotland had a winning day in Füssen with both the junior women's and men's teams still unbeaten.

The Women sneaked a 4-3 victory over champions Japan, courtesy of a perfect draw shot with the last stone of the game. Fay Henderson showed nerves of steel, according to the WCF website.

On the other hand, the Men had a much easier time of it, beating Turkiye 8-3 and then Italy by 10-3 after only 6 ends. To be fair to Italy they had a virtually unheard of 12-end game against Norway earlier today. Statistically it's equivalent to 18 minutes added time in a football match.

Tomorrow the Women play Canada at 8am, then Sweden at 6pm. The Men take on Germany at 1pm with both teams yet to lose.