We didn’t finish the season with a bang in Canada like we had hoped to.
Jennifer Jones got in our way again unfortunately!
Her team beat us in the quarter-final of the Players’ Championship.
It was probably one of the best matches we’ve been involved in all season.
If I’m being honest, we probably should have won because we were two ahead with a couple of ends left, but all credit to Jennifer and her team. They just managed to edge past us again like they did in the Olympic semi-final.
There had been speculation she might retire after the tournament but she has decided to commit to another four year cycle, so there will be a lot more battles in the future.
I’m confident we can get the better of them in the years to come though. They are coming towards the end of their careers, while we’ve hopefully still got a lot of improvement left in us.
Yesterday we got together for an Olympics review with all our support staff.
It was a really worthwhile thing to do.
We went over what we thought had gone well over the course of the season, and what we could do better next time.
We also spoke about which support staff we felt benefitted us and which we could do without.
I’d say we definitely had less than four years ago, because it was a bit over the top for Vancouver. The ratio of support staff to players can get silly if you’re not careful.
One of the most important people on our team has been our video analyst Kenny Moore.
Kenny has been involved with Scottish football and Scottish hockey and he’s been a big help, both from the point of view of breaking down our own game, and the opposition’s.
He’s picked up weaknesses in opponents that we hadn’t spotted, and we’ve been able to capitalise on that and work it into our game plan.
And he’s also picked up things that we’ve done wrong.
I know our coach Dave Hay likes to have his video back-up when he tells us where we’ve messed up. That way we can’t argue with him!
It’s all important stuff for the memory bank when those big shots come round.
You’re always learning.
* There are people far more qualified than myself to speak about the big sports story of the week David Moyes being sacked by Manchester United.
Forget the football reasons though, it’s pretty poor when social media knows all about you losing your job before you do. And for that, the people at the top of Man United owe Moyes an apology.
* Nobody could ever accuse Andy Murray of forgetting his roots.
His emotional speech in Stirling the other day showed us all how proud he is to come from this part of the world. And I’m sure it meant a lot to be honoured with the freedom of the city.
He hasn’t got everything this year though. Just remember who beat you to the big one, AndyStirling Sportsperson of the Year!