Successful Start for Team Genève / Team Pätz
Our first tournament of the new season took us to Stirling, Scotland. Last Wednesday, we travelled there together and had the opportunity to get in a first training session at the venue that evening. After many hours of summer training on the ice and in the gym, we were excited to finally get back into competition mode.
Throughout our preparation, we had already made important progress and continued to grow together as a team. This first tournament was therefore a valuable opportunity to see where we currently stand, what is already working well, and what we want to focus on in the coming weeks.
We started the event with a win against the young Scottish Team Seftor. In our second game against Team Zardini Lacedelli from Italy, we made a few too many mistakes and suffered our first loss after a shootout.
As the event also served as a qualification tournament for the first Grand Slam of the season, the games were played under the current Slam rules. For example, each team was allowed a maximum of one blank end per game. If a second blank end occurred, the hammer – the right to throw the last stone – switched to the opposing team. In addition, tied round-robin games after eight ends were not decided by an extra end, but by one draw shot per team.
After starting with one win and one loss, we wanted to raise our level on the final day of the round robin – and managed to win both of our remaining games. With a 3–1 record, we qualified for the quarterfinal on Sunday morning.
There, we defeated Team Hürlimann from Switzerland. In the semifinal, we faced Team Zardini Lacedelli again and were able to turn things around after our round-robin loss. This meant that we reached the final in our very first tournament together.
In the final, we faced another Swiss team, Team Schwaller. After a very even start, the score remained close for several ends. In the fifth end, however, we managed to score four points and build an important lead. That meant victory at the Euro Super Series in Stirling – and our first tournament win as Team Genève / Team Pätz! 🏆
