Gold: Brent Jansen and Cathy Denny
Silver: Karen Heagle and Liz Fraikin
Bronze: Ian McMorran & Helen Kempster
For the Australian Pairs in mid-September we brought in smoke typical of an Australian bushfire season. To add atmosphere to the Scotch Pairs September 26-27, we arranged for some typical Scottish weather.
Clan Fraser
Clan McIntyre
The organizers had debated at length whether to go ahead in the light of uncertain forecasts on Saturday. The morning looked wet, but the afternoon was hopeful, so it was proposed to play just one game on Saturday afternoon and play two games on Sunday. All 32 registered players were polled, (more than one third of them with ); and almost everybody agreed that they could extend to the afternoon if we decided to go ahead.
After inspecting the greens for flooding at midday Saturday, we decided to risk going ahead at two o’clock, trusting that the forecast of 40% rain at 2:00 p.m. meant that there was a 60% chance of it not happening. And before 3:00 p.m. the rain was supposed to stop.
But there were a few drops at 2:00 p.m., followed by a LOT more. Twenty minutes into the event, there were calls for abandonment by some, but Brent Merchant, chief decision maker (“we can play in a bit of rain”) was too busy sweeping water away from the shallow lake that used to be rink 16 west to pay attention.
By three o’clock the rain had stopped, and skips felt able to take their proper role (in Scotch Pairs skips and leads swap positions at the halfway point) and we played on. For eight winning pairs and eight losers, it was the first day . . . and we all went home to dry out, warm up and maybe partake of a wee dram.
The weather gamble paid off on Sunday as the skies gradually brightened and the rain stayed away.
Mission accomplished!
Round two winnowed the two-game winners to five. By round three, you had to be a three-game winner to get into the medals. Brent Jansen and Cathy Denny captured gold, based on winning more ends than the other two pairs. Karen Heagle and Liz Fraikin pipped Ian McMorran and Helen Kempster by just two shots to take the silver.
Fund raising for CHAMP added $443 to the Australian Pairs total of $544.60 to make a total donation of $987.60. Does anyone have $12.40 to spare to round our total to four figures? A levy of $1.13 on each of the players with Scottish ancestry would do it . . . (Further donations via cheques made out to CHAMP are tax-deductible. 😇)
