A taste of B

It's 05.30 and Chief Umpire Alan Stanfield parades his umpiring team prior to the start of practice at Curl Aberdeen, where the B Division teams at the Le Gruyere European Curling Championships will compete for the next week.

And here are the umpires at Curl Aberdeen. Back L-R: Charlie Kapp, Christine Shaw, Alan Stanfield. Front: Glenda Barrowman, Albert Middler, Eeva Rothlisberger. And TWO Christmas trees!

Serbia is here. This is Bojan Mijatovic.

Team Iceland is here!

And Croatia was another of the countries whose practice slots were at 07.30! This is their skip Alen Cadez.

The Greeks were on the ice too. Now, I have a story about the Greek team. There are based in Germany. A couple of years back, they played at the Europeans in Garmisch and had a number of cheerleaders (yes, real ones!) supporting them. I was so disappointed this morning to find them on their own. Still they are Bob's Team of the Day!

This is the skip Nikolaos Zacharias

Alternate Efstratios Kokkinellis

Dionysios Karakostas is the second.

Lead is Athanassios Pantios

Third player is Georgios Arampatzis

Good luck to the Greek team this week!

Pics by Bob (and apologies in advance for any wrongly identified, or names misspelled!)