benlog

It’s been a bit more than a year since I last posted to my nlog, and even longer since I wrote about curling…

Since that time I’ve had many wonderful curling adventures including, but not limited to:

• first experiences at a different curling club and eating pig tails
• haggis
• meeting some great new friends with similar curling goals to my own
• attending a curling fantasy camp (2006)
• joining more league nights
• realizing significant growth in understanding of the sport
• a runner-up team for the GLCA Men’s Club Nationals Playdowns (2007)
• summer spieling fun with friends in Knoxville and Pittsburgh (2007)
• qualifying for a provincial level tournament in Ontario (Best Western Challenge, Zone 16, 2008)
• winning a cow milking contest at a curling event in Guelph (2008)

The most recent excitement is from two summer bonspiels that just happened. First, I skipped a team with E, G, and S in Knoxville the weekend before last. We played some great games, one of which included a steal of 7 points, winning our first two games before being knocked out by another Detroit team. That was still a top 6 (of 24) finish and not bad for my first out-of-club skipping experience. There are pictures on the Great Smoky Mountains Curling Club Myspace Page - our team is the one in the yellow spirit of curling shirts.

Then, this last weekend, there was a brand new summer spiel in Port Huron, Michigan. This was a similar team with E, S, and S (G sat this one out) although a much smaller field of only 6 teams. The format was a pseudo round robin where each team had four games and then the top two would play for the finals. We won our first 3 games and then faced the only other undefeated team for our fourth. That team included some very good and very experienced curlers, including a twice national Men’s curling champion. Our team played just great for us, managing to tie the score in the 7th end and only lose by 1 point. That put us in second place and so our very next game was against the same team for the finals. In the finals we still played very well, but ran out of rocks down 4 in the last end. Even with the small field, I feel pretty good about our team being the runner up against such a good team. I had a great time playing against that team and as a bonus we all got our first curling trophies from a bonspiel.

There is an article about the event from the Port Huron Times Herald and some extra pictures, too.