(by Alexander Wilhelm)
Every year, the Curling Club Düsseldorf holds an international bonspiel, inviting teams from near and far to participate in the Radschläger tournament (which is named after one of the symbols of Düsseldorf, a Child doing a cartwheel).
With a well-connected airport and train station only a few minutes away, it’s easy for teams to come from far away – in the past, we’ve had participants from Scotland, England, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Turkey and even Russia. This year, the furthest travelled team came from Puigcerda, Spain which is located near Andorra on the border to France.
We also had additional international flavor from team Hellas, our local greek national team, and a resident Canadian contingent on team Canadorf. Visiting for the first time was a team from CC Schwenningen, and we were pleased to welcome back teams with old and new faces from Geising, Frankfurt and Cologne. During the pre-game reception on Saturday morning, a 12th team was cobbled together from Düsseldorf players to fill an unexpectedly vacant spot; it then was given the appropriately inappropriate name „getürkte Türken“ (because the spot was caused by a turkish team).
Taking place in a hockey arena that is open to the outside, there is always some uncertainty in how the weather will affect the ice conditions – this year, we were in luck, with two nice, cold (for Düsseldorf) and sunny days. The low winter sun and 96 curling rocks in simultaneous play made for a spectacular atmosphere as the first round got underway, as you can see in our photo gallery.
After two games that day, everyone had a very pleasant evening with a delicious banquet dinner in a nearby Düsseldorf Alt-beer brewery restaurant.
On Sunday, it was unexpectedly the team which hadn’t existed until the day before leading the ranking into the last game. They proceeded to win, securing 1st place in the tournament. Their opponents in the last game, Team Canadorf, managed to hang on to 2nd place in the open final round, narrowly ahead of ‚4 Kölsch bitte‘, who had two fewer ends.
Thanks to a number of ties, no team had to go home without any points, and everyone got to take a small souvenir to remind them of the fun times on and off the ice.
Die Bilder sind online. Teamfotos aller 12 Teams und aus den Spielen findest du HIER
Herzlichen Dank an die Fotografin Silvia Ulenberg!
Platz | Team | Punke | Ends | Steine |
1 | Getürkte Türken | 8 | 21 | 39 |
2 | Canadorf | 6 | 17 | 27 |
3 | 4 Kölsch bitte | 6 | 15 | 26 |
4 | CCD1 | 5 | 19 | 36 |
5 | Hellas | 4 | 15 | 21 |
6 | Comearounds | 4 | 14 | 20 |
7 | Chaos Curlers | 3 | 15 | 30 |
8 | Puigcerda | 3 | 15 | 23 |
9 | C.I.D. | 3 | 13 | 21 |
10 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 3 | 11 | 22 |
11 | CC Schwenningen | 2 | 11 | 18 |
12 | 1. SCV Geising | 1 | 12 | 21 |