Loch Fleet on the verge of first league crown
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Two league games remain but Loch Fleet, after moving to a four-point lead from their unbeaten run of seven games, can make the preparations for celebrating their first league win after the next round on March 4th.
The team of skip Keith Stewart from Brora, Scott and Helen Lyon and Emma Deeth enjoyed a 6-5 win over Tony Watson’s Locheye squad this week to move to 14 points. They are four clear of the two North Highland Curling Trust rinks with two rounds left to play.
Stewart’s influence has showed, with winning shots building up in every game, 74 to date this season against a loss of just 30.
Before last week’s games, former champion Hugh Mackay’s NHCT 1 rink was already four points adrift, but he moved into second place, ahead of the Trust’s second rink skipped by Richard Mackenzie, with an easy 9-3 win over last season’s champion Nigel Murray (Rogart).
Still ecstatic after being part of Scotland’s memorable Strathcona Cup win in Canada, Mackenzie forgot to check out his squad of NHCT curlers for his tie against Stuart Gardner’s Dornoch and on arrival at the Ice Rink found himself a player short.
Already with two of his Killearnan, Ross-shire Province, rink on the ice playing for Sutherland clubs, Killearnan’s skip Neil Gillies was then summoned but by the time he arrived Mackenzie had already accepted the mandatory four-shot penalty for playing several ends with only three curlers and was six shots behind.
Dornoch ran out 13-3 winners over the deflated MacKenzie to all but assure Loch Fleet their first Sutherland Province championship.
League results, Round 7 – K Stewart (Loch Fleet) 6 D Gordon (Locheye 1) 5, N Murray (Rogart) 3 H Mackay (NHCT 1) 9, C MacRae (Alness) 11 A Mackenzie (Locheye 2) 3, S Gardner (Dornoch) 13 R Mackenzie (NHCT 2) 3, N Murray (Brora) 9, A Munro (RSYF) 3.
* Richard Mackenzie, originally from Kinbrace, was part of the Scotland team which took the Strathcona Cup, which Scotland won by 2876 shots to 2621 over the Canadian hosts.
The 2013 tour for Mackenzie began in Ottawa on 10th January and nearly every day he was on the ice all over central Canada, apart from a couple of days when he was confined to bed with a cold.
Twenty-one days later, after playing in 37 ice rinks, his tour ended in Toronto where the full Scottish team of 60 curlers came together to celebrate regaining the cup from their hosts.
Mackenzie said on his return home: “It was a trip of a lifetime and I am so privileged to be only the third Sutherland Province curler to have had the experience.
“I will certainly pass on to the next Sutherland curler selected some tips if they wish to apply for a tour and give the following advice now, just keep fit and healthy and get used to plenty of morning class gin.”
