The Hizzle of T-Fizzle

Additional notes on our Round 1 loss: club members seemed astounded that not only did we not get shut out by our opponents that we scored in 2 ends, one of those being the first end.  Through the remainder of the weekend, I received many tips and pointers from their skip, Wayne.  He’s a bang-up guy.  One of his key tips was to stick to low-risk shots - draws and taps.  Avoid takeouts.  If you throw takeout weight and miss, your stone will probably go through the house and be out of play.  If you aim to knock a stone to the back of the house with just heavy draw weight, a miss will more likely leave your stone somewhere in the house.  My new mentor did not mention this, but I think an interesting side effect is that calling a “takeout” comes with psychological baggage that the stone has to come pretty fast.  I found that asking myself and my teammates to tap a stone back often resulted in a clean takeout.  After the game I asked Derek what advice he might have, as he watched the game.  He basically reiterated Wayne’s advice - stick to taps and draws as much as possible.  I realized that I had not taken Wayne’s advice as seriously as I should have.  By “stick to taps and draws,” I think they really mean “avoid takeouts wherever possible.”  When there seemed to be an “obvious” takeout, I’d still call it.  And have the thrower miss, leaving us with nothing.

Round 2 saw us playing at the unfortunate 8AM time slot against a mixed team from Potomac in Maryland.  They were actually gearing up for the Kayser (the major novice tournament on the east coast) and all had 5 year’s experience (the maximum before you are no longer considered a novice).  Armed with our new knowledge and a weaker opponent (although not much weaker - I don’t remember whether they won or came 2nd in the 2nd bracket, but they went pretty far), we managed to keep the damage better-controlled - we again took 2 ends for 2 points, only letting up 12. 

We hung out with the Potomac folks for a few hours after the game, chatting, playing cards.  They were a nice group of people.  Hopefully we’ll see them at next month’s MACA Friendly.  They were shilling hard for their late-season Cherry Blossom Bonspiel which sounds like a lot of fun, but at this point we’ve probably about exhausted out curling budget for the year.  If you’re not too careful, you could easily curl yourself right to the poor house.

at 5:00PM we took on a group of men from Ardsley in New York.  This group featured a fairly experienced back end and a fairly new front end.  This time, I really stuck to the no-takeout policy, with nice results.  We were still outmatched, but with growing experience and a narrower gap between us and Ardsley, we kept the margin of victory closer.  We picked up 2 ends for 3 points, keeping things to 10-3.  It was actually a very close match until the 6th end.  I think someone opened the door to the ice shed and the smell of dinner cooking in the clubhouse wafted in and killed our concentration.  We let up 4 in that end.

As with Potomac, we hung out with the Ardsley team for a few hours until they went back to their hotel to rest up for an 8AM game on Sunday.  We were fortunate to get to play against 2 visiting teams.  Part of this whole bonspiel thing is making friends from other clubs, which you may not do as much of if you play with teams from your own club.

That knocked us out of the final bracket and ended our run.  We returned to the club on Sunday for the brunch where Tracy made the best scrapple ever (food is included in the entry fee - why not get your money’s worth?).  We stayed for the two final matches which includes an interesting traditional procession where a bagpiper leads the players onto the ice and everyone has a shot of Drambuie.  After the finals, we headed home for a rest before that evening’s Beginners League game.  Actually Mike and Mary just stayed at the club all afternoon, but X and I left.

The Beginners game was pretty whacky.  Because the four of us are “’spieling” together, some of the league organizers arranged to have us all on the same team so that we can at least practice together some.  The team was so tired from the rest of the weekend that they could barely get a stone into the house!  I made a brief deviation from the newly-adopted “no takeouts” policy and attempted a bold takeout that was completely off target and resulted in a 3-point deficit.  I vowed not to make that mistake again and called more cautiously for the duration of the match.  Anytime the opposition attempted a takeout and missed, I let that be a reminder of why both Wayne and Derek gave me that advice.  The rest of the game was pretty even and some great shots were made. 

We also learned some interesting rules-related tips:

It’s at least frowned upon to try to measure stones with the head of your broom (or anything, for that matter).  It may be illegal (rule 12.2 says “Every stone that is within 1.83 meters (6 feet) of the tee is eligible to be counted. Interpretation: The 6-foot measuring device shall be the sole instrument used to determine whether a stone is in the house, at the conclusion of the end.” which seems to suggest that only the “official” measuring device can be used to measure and it can only be used at the end of the end, but it also could be read to mean that when you’re measuring for score, you have to use a real measuring tool and not a broomhandle or your foot, and if you want to get out the measuring tool, you have to wait until the end is over - but you can take your own informal measurements during the end if you wish.)!  During play I don’t think you often need any kind of precise measurement, but on those rare occasions that you do, it’s probably best to just eyeball as best you can.

And - if you burn a moving stone inside the hogline, you shouldn’t stop it immediately, but rather call yourself on it to the skps in the house as soon as it happens.  Since the opposing skip has the choice to remove the burned stone from play or leave it where it lands (including anything it might have hit in the process) if it works out in his favor.  This, of course, is to prevent you from intentionally burning a stone if you realize it’s not going to go well for you.  If the infraction occurs outside the hogline, the skip isn’t entitled to reposition any rocks, so the stone should be stopped immediately.

A related incident during our match against Potomac - Becca (opposing skip) burned one of our stones trying to sweep it through the house.  By rule, I am supposed to place it where I thought it would have landed.  Becca seemed surprised that I didn’t opt to leave it in the house somewhere, but I couldn’t in good conscience - it hit her broom pretty good and still went throught the house.  It wasn’t stopping!

After this last match we went home to rest up for work.  I have another match Monday night - the “Past Presidents.”  Thankfully, skipping is not nearly as strenuous as sweeping.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 8th, 2007 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Curling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.