Report

The EJCT Final in Hamburg was played with 7 boys and 5 girls teams. Not many teams but this way a lot of games were guaranteed and there was not much time to be killed in between the draws.

Boys tournament: the leading team in the EJCT SWE1-Lindström started with two losses before the team got used to the ice and stones. All the teams were very equal at the beginnings and no team could win more than 4 games in the round robin. At the end of the RR three teams were tied with 4 points and two teams with 3 points. The internal results had to determine the four semi-finalists. (This point has to be discussed as one of the coaches felt that the DSC result should have decided the top 4). Both semi-finals were decided by last shot. SWE1 and SCO1 (Black) used their last rock advantage to move to the final. The final was very close until SWE1 counted a 3 in the 6th end. This was the game. In the Bronze Medal Game GER2 (Neuner) started with 3 in the second and end and never let the Scottish come back into the game.

Girls tournament: After loosing the first game SWE1 (Berg) won all the other games of the RR. GER1, GER3 and SCO1 gained two wins each, only GER2 (Hiltensberger) had only one victory. The ranking of the teams was decided by internal results. Both semi-finals were surprising but very clear. SCO1 (Dodds) beat GER1 (Templin) and GER3 (Scholz) won against SWE1. In the final the more experienced team from Germany started with 3 in the first and stole the next three ends leading 7:0. So the final was over after 6 ends only. The Bronze Medal game was just the other way around: after 7 ends the score was 1:1 and Frederike Templin had to draw to the bottom to win the game.

First of all I want to congratulate all the participants for their great performance on and off the ice. Although the teams had to play a lot of games (especially the boys) and the schedule was very tight, the players showed great discipline. We had a TV-station taking some pictures Friday morning and the report was shown Saturday evening during the regional news.

The over all winners of the first European Junior Curling Tour 2008/9 are the teams GER1 (Frederike Templin, Pia-Lisa Schöll, Ann-Katrin Bastian, Simone Ackermann) and SWE1 (Alexander Lindsträm, Christopher Sundgeren, Henrick Leek, Kristioan Lindström, Oskar Eriksson).

Dieter Kolb