The word on the ice was St Gerard's School was going down in this year's Primary Interschool Curling Tournament.
New Zealand curling ambassador Bruce Kissel was on hand at the Iceinline Central skating rink and said the school had won the past two events and the other school teams were ''out to get them''.
He was right, as Alexandra Primary School Team Two brushed the competition favourite off the top spot.
Alexandra Primary Two won with 35 points, Terrace Two was second with 28 and Alexandra Primary Four was third with 25.
The winning team, Abbie Harrison (13), Sienna Casbolt (12), Fraser Hart (12), and Breana Smith (12), described their strategy as ''getting it in the middle'' and ''teamwork''.
Organiser Nick Loughnan said the competition started in 2008. Pupils from Roxburgh Area, St Gerard's, Alexandra Primary, The Terrace, Omakau, Clyde and Poolburn schools took part in the the ''one-day wonder'' tournament.
The competition had come a long way from using the ''home-grown, home-made'' jam tins filled with concrete, and now used stones imported from Canada.
Two forms of curling were in action on the ice, crampit and hack.
Crampit was the ''older, traditional outdoors style'' where curlers stood on a metal plate and threw the stone down the ice, while hack was the norm in indoor curling rinks, where curlers push off from the hack and slide down the ice before releasing the stone.
Mr Kissel said he enjoyed coming back every year to help the young curlers ''reach their potential''.
Knowing the ''ice conditions'' and how much weight to put into the delivery of the stone were the secrets to curling success, he said.
Curling was great value for the children and hoped they might come back one day and keep the crampit tradition ''alive'', Mr Kissel said.
