Kelso curler Kyle is off to Canada

Kelso High School pupil Kyle has been selected to attend the Trillium Curling Camp in Ontario, Canada, in August.

He was chosen, along with Inca Maguire, from Forfar, from about 20 hopefuls who went through an application and interview process.

Every year, the province’s Curling Association hosts two separate weeks of youth curling camps at the K-W Granite Club in Waterloo, Ontario.

Each one accepts 96 campers, divided into different age and ability groups, depending on how much coaching they may have had, as well as bonspiel, provincial or national experience.

Kyle and Inca will be chaperoned by Olympic silver medal winner Scott Andrews, while the trip is funded by the Matt Murdoch Foundation, with Support from Scottish Curling.

Kyle was part of the Kelso High School rink which last month won the Scottish School Curling Championship, after edging closer and closer to the title in recent years.

The Borders youngsters scored a 7-2 win over St Joseph’s of Dumfries – who had defeated them in last year’s final.

It was particularly treasurable for several members of the Kelso team, who’d played in the tournament before and managed to get a little further each time.

Kyle, along with Angus Bryce and Joanna Sutherland, reached the quarter-finals in 2016 and the semis in 2017. They were joined last year by Kyle’s younger brother, Callum, and made the final.

Indeed, their consistent improvement had led Kyle to predict: “If we get there (in 2019), we will win.”

And – despite losing their first game – they did, in impressive style.