Curling: Week One

Curling is back in session.

I signed up for the first fall session, five Saturdays. Four round-robin games and one championship/bowl week.

On Friday night I subbed for a team in the non-rookie league. It was a tight one. The team I was playing for ending up losing 5-4. But that’s 9 points in 8 ends, just one more than the expected minimum. The loss was no skin off my back. I had some good shots. Of course one of them was wiped out on the very next shot. But that’s curling for you. I got some good practice in. They let me shoot second.

Tonight I showed up on our league team. Our team lineup changed and I’m now a secure vice-skip (3^rd position). Which is ideal for me. Skip is awesome but I’m not ready.

Tonight we were yellow.

1^st end: Yellow 1

2^nd end: Yellow 2

3^rd end: Yellow 2

4^th end: Red 1

So halfway through, we’re up 5-1.

5^th end: Yellow 2

That was a big one. 7-1 is much different than 5-2.

6^th end: Yellow 2

Now we’re up 9-1 with two to go. Can breathe easy.

7^th end: Red 1

9-2 going into the last one, but we have the hammer.

As the vice skip, I get to call the shot for the skip. For her first shot, I called a takeout of a red stone. Yellow was sitting one, then one red, and then a bunch of yellows around. So I was hoping to takeout the red one and get a multiple score. But the takeout didn’t work. It was short. Then red had their last shot that didn’t go anywhere.

We could have called it one yellow for a 10-2 win. But we had the hammer, one last chance to add more points. So I called for a draw to the button, why not? It comes in looking good, and wouldn’t you know? It hits the red stone, knocks it out of the back of the house. So I’m looking around and all I see is yellow stones now. Too many to count. Someone shouted seven. We scored seven out of eight possible stones. An 8-ender is of course the best you can do in an end and is rare and legendary. Getting a 7-ender in our first game? That’s crazy.

Final Score: 16-2.

I had joked before the last end that the other team needed an 8-ender to win.

I hit a bunch of great shots, all draws with good weight and did good on the calling end as well. Playing for our team is 100 times better than being a sub. You’d think it would be about the same, but for some reason, I didn’t enjoy subbing. But this game was awesome.