Chuck Hay would get my vote on the men's side. He brought Scottish curling into the modern world in the 60s, when the traditionalists disapproved of the new 'takeout game'. He was backed up by a great team, but he was the boss.

Difficult call with the women. Eve Muirhead has immense talent, as a skip and as a shotplayer, but so did Kirsty Addison (Hay) and Julia Ewart at the same age. I would think that Eve has the potential to be the greatest.

Got to agree with you on the Hammy shout. His 5 European golds spring to mind along with winning the worlds in St John in Canada. His biggest setback has to be the Olympics, where unfortunately, he has crashed and burned. Some of his outstanding shots are now immortalised in curling folklore, none more so than the 13ft angled raised nosehit to stick on the button against Denmark for the Gold medal. Will there ever be a more dramatic finale to an International Championships? Incidentally, I think that team of Hammy, Warwick, Ewan and Pete in 1999/2000 is possibly the strongest team we have ever had. 

The ladies is a much harder call. Bob mentions Kirsty Addison and Julia Ewart along with Eve. What did they actually win apart from Juniors?(which doesn't count in the big bad world really) 4th in the olympics was probably Kirsty's best along with a solitary silver in the Europeans. Julia only ever got a 4th in the Worlds.(although like Eve her junior record is phenomenal)

Eve hasn't really proven anything yet.....but I'm sure she will sooner rather than later. Eve's biggest problem will be finding the right team round about her to put her in a position to win the top gongs.

My choice would have to be Rhona with her Olympic gold. (closely followed by Jackie with her World gold in 2002 being very significant).

Golly ~ We do, have short memories.

There will always be people wanting to know who is the "Best Player" but I'm not sure that Competition Results is always a good guide, as it promotes the actions of Skips and rarely recognises those of other team Members.

Don't get me wrong, Hammy, Chuck, Rhona, Eve and Jackie are all splendid players but I doubt they'd have had a snowball's chance in hell on the Ice of 30 years ago.

As you can see ~ I'm not into "Celebrity Sport". I think that many of the "Best" Players may never play outside their own Club, or outside their Home Rink.

So yes ~ we can consider who will be todays Princes and Princesses, but please do not believe that they are necessarily "The Best"

I have not watched as much curling as I might have in the last forty something years I have played. So I don't think I am quailfied to give an opinion. But round about 1969 and certainly after Chuck won the silver broom I did ask perhaps our greatest ever spectator, Ken Horton's dad, who he thought was the best Scottish curler he had seen. "George Lindsay" he replied instantly. "You didn't think long about that" I asked, "Didn't have to" he smiled back, and regaled me with some of his favourite Faither George is in the house stories.  I'd forgotten all about that, if I shut my eyes I can see him now in that homburg hat finding any amount of time for teenagers with stupid questions. I'm getting a bit teary, what is this I'm smokin'?
 
 

I would of thought  Pete Smith deserves a mention for the reason I am about to give. On the video I have of the world jnr ladies final in 95 the question was asked , who has won national jnr , snr  , European and World championships , the answer being Peter and at that time was the only person in the world to have that accolade.

Agree whole-heartedly with all names put forwards - all great sportsmen/women.

I would just like to add one more - the late George Haggart, not only a great curler, but a talented golfer, "hired assassin" shot, fisherman and a great mentor to any teenager lucky enough to know him.

A couple of people have asked who W K Jackson was.

He was generally reckoned to be about the best of the great "old school" curlers and Robin Welsh said of his sideboard that it was groaning under the weight of all the silverware that he had won!

He was the skip of the GB Olympic team in 1924 and they won the Gold Medals, though when you look at the record, there were only four teams that entered, GB, Sweden 1, Sweden 2 and France.  Canada, for example, did not have an entry.

GB won the two games that they played.  They beat Sweden 38 - 7 and France 46 - 4 (that's not a misprint, by the way!).

Somewhere, there will be a record of how many ends they played in each game, but I do not suppose that it was anything less than 14 or 15.

That might be an interesting topic for HGW and the Sheriff's History Blog!