Loofie League Bonspiel 2026

The Loofie League held its Bonspiel a little later in the year than normal and found ourselves competing with the coverage of the round robin phase of the Mixed Curling Pairs at the Winter Olympics in Cortina, Italy, we held our season 2025-26 Bonspiel on the afternoon of Saturday 7th February 2026 at Perth.

This season we had the largest fixture card for a very long time with 10 rinks competing over 5 sheets for the coveted trophy. This came about as a result of us being joined this season by Falkland and Cragiehill Curling Clubs, alongside an application from Perth Juniors to field a second rink for the season and Perth Gateway Curling Club seeking to hone their new found skills as relative newcomers to the game.

All are welcome and all goes to reinforce the spirit of the Loofie philosophy around helping novices to experience the realities of club curling, We feel the Loofie is heading in the right direction in this and we intend to continue to foster relations with the novice end of the game to provide a unique experience for our new curlers.

The draw saw Falkland playing Craigiehill, Perth Gateway playing Cupar, Perth Juniors 2 versus Newport, Pitlessie versus Perth Juniors 1 and, finally Leuchars taking on Forret.  Some clubs struggled slightly to make up their numbers this year so we are indebted to Ian Wallace the Secretary of Falkland Curling Club and Ewan McConnachie (Perth Gateway) subbing into Cupar to help them out. The Loofie Secretary Frank Gibson (me) even found himself unexpectedly on the ice giving Newport a hand (or maybe a hindrance!).

The Bonspiel got off to a tentative start, as always, but several teams soon started to pull away from the pack. By the 4th end we have Leuchars and Pitlessie showing their noses out front with Leuchars on 7 shots and Pitlessie on 5 shots. The strong play continued all the way to the end of the competition with Leuchars and Pitlessie finishing on 15 each and, closely behind them Craigiehill and Cupar on 14 shots each.

The winner is decided on shots scored but, as we had a tie at the top, we went to ends won. That didn't help as both clubs had won 6 ends! It was decided to then go to shots up and we were finally able to seperate the two with Pitlessie being 12 shots up over their opponents whilst Leuchars had achieved 11 shots up.

The winning Pitlkessie rink of W. Finlay (lead), J. Grieve (2nd), I Whiteford (3rd) and  Angus Stenhouse (Skip and Loofie President) were presented with the Loofie trophy by Frank Gibson, the Loofie Secretary. (Picture)

Bonspiel Winners 2026

Cupar Province Bonspiel 2025-26 Season

The 2025-26 season Bonspiel for Cupar Curling Province was held on Thursday 4th December 2025 at Dewars Ice Rink, Perth. 

Fielded that evening were 9 Province clubs and a rink comprising Province committee members to ensure we had an even number of rinks competing over the 5 sheets allocated to us. Taking to the ice were Abdie, Ceres, Cupar, Falkland, Forret, Leuchars, Newport, Pitlessie and Stratheden. Newport were defending their win from last year and, to make the point clear, had polished the Bonspiel trophy to a bright gleam which, they claimed, had been absent when they won it!

In this spirit of friendly rivalry the curlers took to the ice, shaking hands with their opponents in the time honoured tradition of the game. Battle commenced with Pitlessie scoring an early 3 in the first end of their game against The Committee. Falkland managed a creditable 2 against Abdie in these early minutes with 1's being recorded on the other 3 rinks.

In the first hour play continued at a good pace with nobody really pulling away from the competitiuon to any great extent. It should be noted that the winners of the Bonspiel are the rink scoring the most points and, as was pointed out by at least one veteran of the Province, "tactics should be along the lines of the pot lid competitions. Loads of stones in the house and keep away from the take-out game!".

The message was heard and clearly acted upon as when we reach the 6th end we see that Ceres, playing Cupar,  Abdie playing Falkland and Forret playing Leuchars are all on 8 points each and starting to watch one anothers progress with hope and trepidation in equal measure. The Committee rink were looking nervously on, having accumulated 7 points and well in contention for the win, and unsure about what the rule book had to say about them taking the victory.

The 7th end saw the worried looks on the Committe faces ease somewhat as they lost that end and then ran out of time to play an 8th. Meanwhile, Ceres took a 2 and Abdie took a 4 on the 7th end and went into the 8th end with Ceres now chasing anything bigger than a 2. Cupar duly obliged in resolving the issue by taking a 2 from Ceres and Abdie finished on a creditable 2, achieving a total of 14 to the Ceres 10.

Afterwards, in the bar, the Secretary, Craig Lindsay thanked everybody for turning out and playing in the true spirit of the game. He mentioned something about gleaming trophies and previous storage arrangements being in a "coo byre" or "tattie trailer". The author was unsure of the implication of these comments but much laughter did ensue.  Craig then presented the Bonspiel trophy to the Abdie winning rink of: K. Rose (Skip), G. Thomson (3rd), W. Thomson (2nd) and S. Cranston (lead) (pictured).

Historical Curling Places Website/Resource 

Thanks to Ian Wallace of Falkland Curling Club we recently learned of a project that's been running since 2009 which is dedicated to discovering, researching and documenting every site used now and in the past for curling across the UK.

                                                                      Screengrab_Province_map.jpg                                                               

 The site is self explanatory when you land on it but, to help you on the way, above is a screen grab from the site showing part of the Cupar Curling Province area in fife. I count around 30 sites on that image alone. Many of those sites are well known but some are not so well known. All are well reasearched with references on the site itself so, go on, have a wee nosey yourself here. 

Cupar Curling Province Prizegiving 2025

The 2025 AGM of Cupar Curling Province was held on Thursday 17th April 2025. Below is a list of our winners and a link to their smiley pictures all being presented their prizes by our President Craig Lindsay and Vice-President Morag Erskine.

Well done to all our winners!

The island of Ailsa Craig and it's link with the 'roarin game'.

Just out on YouTube is this fascinating video made by Ruth Aisling all about the island of Ailsa Craig, off the ayreshire coast, where the granite to make the stones for our sport is quarried.

Ruth also goes into detail on the manufacture of the stones and why we use this particular granite.