Fréttir 2005

Ice Cup 2005: Canadians win the Ice Cup again 

Second Ice Cup resulted in the second Canadian win - with Margarita Canada beating the Icelandic team, Fimmtiuplus, in the gold medal game. Three Icelandic teams going through to the semi-finals in Ice Cup had to accept the guests as winners. In the semi-finals winners from heats A&C played and winners from B&D.

In the B-D semi-final Margarita Canada took the upper hand right away gegn the Icelandic team Skytturnar by scoring 4 stones in the second end. Skytturnar did not have a good chance after that but managed to take some ends during the game. Result was 7-3 and Margarita Canada went to the gold medal game. Developement In the A-C semi-final game was similar, with Fimmtíuplús having scored 7-0 after three ends and the game ending 9-4.

Games for gold, silver and bronze medals were longer than other games in Ice Cup, 8 ends instead of six ends in other games. Margarita Canada put a pressure on their opponents, Fimmtiuplus, when they were 4-0 up after two ends. The Icelandic team wasn’t about to loose that easily and managed to even the score 4-4 in the fifth end only to give away four stones in the next. Final score was 8-6 and Margarita Canada won the gold.

Bronze game was a thriller from beginning to the end. Mammutar had the upper hand most of the game after scoring 3 in the second end. Mammutar and Skytturnar scored 1 in turn until the seventh end when Skytturnar scored 2 and the game was even. Having the hammer in the last end was not enough for Mammutar and a good hit and bury from Jón Hansen, Skytturnar’s skip, brought his team one and the win 6-5.

In retrospect, looking for surprises we can find a few. The Icelandic hospitality was obviously a pleasent surprise for the foreign teams as well as a successful system of play, careful planning and everything regarding this bonspiel. Our foreign guests had a great time in Iceland, enjoying both Icelandic nature, Icelandic people and their hospitality and of course, enjoying some good games of curling. Secondly some of the Icelandic teams surprised the guests and as stated before, three Icelandic teams were in top four playoffs followed by four foreign teams in the second event (5-8 overall). Too bad for these four teams they all ended up in second place in their heats and had to play against each other in the Saturday playoffs instead of enjoying more games against Icelandic teams. The USWCA team was the winner of the 2nd event ending in 5th place overall after beating Curling Coddlers from Cape Cod Curling Club in Massachusetts USA in their final game. Parrots from Potomac Curling Club in Washington DC finished in 7th place after beating Margarita UK in their final game.

Curlers in Akureyri can be proud of themselves having organized a good bonspiel, showing their guests a great time as well as playing some good games of curling. Three Icelandic teams in the top four was more than the club members expected before Ice Cup 2005 started. Judging from what our guests said about everything connected to their trip to Iceland we made them very happy, hopefully so they will tell people back home about this great trip to Iceland bringing us more foreign teams next year. Thereby it is likely we would have to make room for more sheets to be able to have more teams and possibly curling not just on Friday and Saturday but on Sunday also.

Next year every Icelandic, European and American team will have one worthy object: to prevent Canadians from winning Ice Cup the third time in a row. Margarita Canada is the Ice Cup champion 2005 and team Willie Arnason from Gimli Manitoba 2004. It is a funny coincidence that both these teams consist of what we might call an elderly couple, a son/daughter and a daughter/son in law... Imagine that! Congratulations Rob, Kristy, Joan and Stephen!

Who will it be next year?

Ice Cup organizing committe would like to thank every helping hand making Ice Cup 2005 possible – and successful. Ice Cup is a big event and that way it will stay!