I’ll be flying out to Canada for my one-off week as part of Team Hasselborg on Monday.
Olympic champions and the best team in the world……no pressure then!
When I was watching them march their way through the Players Championship round-robin stage last week without a defeat, the decision to accept an invitation to replace their skip, Anna, was starting to look like a poisoned chalice!
They ended up losing the final but they are still the form team in women’s curling.
This is a great opportunity for me at the end of the season.
Getting ready for the Champions Cup has given me some focus over the last few weeks and I’m really excited to play with a team at the top of its game.
It will be a good chance to measure where I’m at and you can’t help but learn from a week like this.
I know all of the girls really well and they absolutely live for their curling.
They’re a close-knit group and I think they’ve only made one line-up change since we played in the juniors back in 2010.
It will be a quick turn-around for me. After landing on Monday, I’ll have a game on Tuesday.
It’s just as well the Swedes drink their coffee like tar because I’ll need a few cups to keep the jet-lag at bay!
It will be strange to put on another team’s kit but I’ll have to disappoint people out there on Twitter who suggested that we change the name to either Team Muirborg or Hasselhead!
I know that me being part of Team Hasselborg while Anna is competing in the World Mixed Doubles has created a lot of publicity for the event.
The more I think about it, I can see it happening more often in the future.
You play with curlers from your own country to qualify for Worlds, Europeans and Olympics but I’d be open-minded about doing this again at a later stage in my career.
A curling ‘Dream Team’ has a nice sound to it and would be a real ticket-seller.
* I got sent a Tweet after Tiger Woods won the Masters reminding me of my prediction that he wouldn’t get another Major.
At least I know that people are reading my column!
To be fair, I’m far from alone in eating humble pie this week.
It was as emotional as I’ve seen Tiger after a win and it was like the old days when his presence on the leaderboard seemed to affect the rest of the contenders. Nobody had a good run at him.
Will that be a one-off, when a combination of experience, good luck and other players falling away got him over the line?
Golf couldn’t have asked for a better storyline for the rest of the Majors.
* Andy Murray’s golf swing looks very impressive, I have to say.
And his hip must be getting significantly better to let him play 18 holes.
The only thing that could top the Tiger story would be for Andy to come back and win Wimbledon.
I bet the thought has crossed his mind and I bet he was out hitting tennis balls on Monday morning!
