The Hizzle of T-Fizzle

Wow…it took me so long to finish writing about Berlin that it’s already curling season again. Where did the Summer go?

Last week kicked off the new curling season. This year I have teamed up with 3 other novice guys to make a go at upsetting some of the more experienced people in the men’s league and perhaps taking a trip to the Dykes which is a major men’s novice bonspiel for the Grand National Curling Club - the sanctioning body for the northeastern US.

Before we could begin, I helped out making the ice. Previously not a lot of club members knew how to build or maintain the ice, so the club president has been working to get more people educated. Building the ice is pretty much what you would expect it to be. You squirt water on the ice. You do it in thin layers, building up bit by bit. Every so often you run the scraper over it to level the ice and hopefully cut off any deformities. I also was involved with laying the 4-foot guidelines and the 50th Anniversary Logo, also a simple process - the guidelines are pieces of yarn stretched tightly and “glued” down by spraying water on them. The logo is just printed on plain paper, sprayed with water and flattened out with a paint roller. There was also a pebbling and scraping class. There was some belief last season that imperfections in the ice were created in part by inconsistent pebbling techniques so we are hoping to alleviate that by actually teaching people a “standard” (if not entirely proper) method of pebbling.

Once the ice was completed but prior to the “official” opening of the club, I was able to join the other members of my team for a practice session. It was still very warm outside and very humid inside. There was literally water running down the walls as it condensed! The air seemed so thick that after just sliding 5 or 6 times without even pushing a stone, I was already huffing and puffing! I did some slides at varying speeds with no stones, then another 10 or so slides pushing a stone but not releasing it at varying speeds. Then I started to throw some stones down to the other end. The ice was very slow and it took a lot of force just to get stones over the hog line. While I was doing this, the remainder of my team and a few others were playing a mini-game and had just finished up so skip Ken came over to call some shots. By the time I had thrown 6 stones, Eric and Vince joined me and we threw our first two stones as a rink.

We corralled all the stones on one end and decided to play an end or two against ourselves. I forgot how much work curling was and I was beat after about 40 minutes of this. The ice conditions were lousy but we had a good time and the session was VERY beneficial for getting some of the cobwebs out.

Over the ensuing weekend, Ken, Eric and Vince joined forces with another club member to play at the Inaugural Bonspiel in Potomac. They had a great run and ended up as the runners up in the main event! This was a very encouraging way to start the season…congrats you guys!

A few days later it was time for our season opener. On the original slate, I was set to play lead with Eric second and Vince on Vice. It was rainy last Wednesday, so it took me a long time to get from work to the club. I ran in, changed and ran out to the ice just in time for the first stone and to catch the news that we were going to flipflop my position and Vince’s since Vince and Eric felt really solid as a front end. Fair enough…I don’t mind skipping, although I have to admit I hadn’t given much thought to curling strategy in awhile and I’ve never played alongside Ken, so it was a bit of a shock to stand in the house at the end of the first end and try to recall all of the hours I had spent with experienced skips over the last season learning the ins and outs of curling strategy.

The game itself was a little bit rough.  We took the first end, lost one on the second end and then things went downhill when we gave up 3 or 4 in the third.  The ice was heavy at first and then the center alley sped up while just outside this remained frosty and very heavy.  Judging weights was very hard and clocking the shots yielded inconsistent results between ends.  After the third end we just couldn’t dig ourselves back up. 

The second game of the week was the Beginner’s League opener.  Our team consists of X, Eric (same as above) and Jay.  We were playing against our teammates and occasional arch-rivals Mike and Mary.  This was a better outing for me than the previous game.  It was X’s first time on the ice since last year and she didn’t feel all that comfortable although she was making decent shots.  The weather was a little colder and the ice was a little more “normal.” 

The second game was very close with both teams exchanging aces and deuces until about the 5th end when a couple of slipups allowed the other team to score 4 and take a 3 point lead.  We managed to take the next 2 ends to claw our way back to a one-point deficit going into the last end with no hammer.  It was fairly late on Thursday night and X was in favor of quitting but fortunately Eric is not the type to quit especially when down by only one point.  Things were not looking good for us through the end…the other team had 2 stones solidly buried, but a mistake after my first stone left an opening.  Eric called for a takeout on the visible stone.  I have been working on throwing up-weight without losing my balance and had been doing well on takeouts this game.  This throw was no exception - the stone went fast and straight, right into the visible stone which careened sidelong into the other stone for a game-saving double takeout.  We were not out of the woods yet, but we at least had a chance.  Eric managed to sneak a second stone into the house and after a couple of misses from the opposition we realized we had managed to pull out a win.  Yay.

Saturday we kicked off the mixed league.  The weather was very warm again.  We ran into some trouble when we all arrived at the club in time for the game only to find that no one had a key!  Someone went home to get one and we started about 1/2 hour late.  I am lead on this team and I was beginning to hit my stride…even on the slow ice I was doing a decent job on the guard shots and I was beginning to grow some accuracy in gauging when to sweep.  Unfortunately we got caught off-guard by some strange ice conditions and just couldn’t catch a break.  It was a fairly close match but they got us in the end.

Previous to the Novice game we mustered up the ranks of CPK to plot our <s>Bonspiel Schedule</s> path of destruction for the year.  Looks like we will be able to make it to two or three “travel” ’spiels plus MACA Friendlies and maybe some of the in-house events in Philly.  I am hoping we can improve our standing by perhaps winning some matches, although I would at least settle for continuing our record of having never been shut out in a tournament

A few more matches played since I started this post - another loss in the men’s league although we played pretty well, and a loss and a tie in Mixed.  Towards the end of the last season, I had a weekend where I played maybe 5 games between league play and the MACA Friendly at Potomac.  That was basically the peak of the season and I had some banner games.  Well in the recent mixed game, I felt about as I did during that peak stretch last season - I think it’s going to be a really fun season.

I’ve also decided to start keeping some stats to help me spot trends in my play like maybe I always screw up out turn draws, or I think I’m doing pretty well but looking back objectively I see that really I just get lucky a lot.  I’ve tossed a notebook in my pocket and am trying to note what shot was called and what I actually ended up throwing.  Hopefully it’s useful.  I’ll post them up here so that stat-head Mike can enjoy them.

Speaking of stats, I have been collecting driving stats for the past few months but I didn’t want to interrupt my Germany tale.  They should be up someday.

Finally, the Harvest Bonspiel is this weekend (Thurs - Sun, 11/15 - 11/18).  It is the club’s premier bonspiel, an invitational mixed format featuring players from as far away as Scotland and Seattle.  Don’t quote me on this, but I believe they don’t mind visitors coming to watch.