benlog

In 16 to 18 hours from now I’ll be on my way driving from Ypsilanti to near Pittsburgh for my second trip to the Pittsburgh Curling Club’s Tropicurl bonspiel. This is a huge and awesomely fun curling event that, with the Rocky Top spiel at the beginning of June, is one of the highlights of the summer curling circuit. There’s one other Detroit Curling Club team going, although they lost a player at the last minute and may be asking some of our team to sub in when possible.

New team this year, but here are the smiling faces of our team - the F event runner-ups - from last year.

* “Get Your Glide On” is copyright © 2008 JCL, used without permission.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Slammer - Grand Slam of Curling Mascot

Originally uploaded by Jasen Robillard.

Here’s a quick flickr find. This is Slammer the curling mascot. I thought it was important to share this.

By the way, in case you weren’t keeping track, the US team finished fourth in the Men’s World Curling Championship that finished up a little over a week ago. Norway was third, then Canada, and then Scotland on top.

Like in the 2005 Men’s Worlds, the US team started out very strong but then either the other teams caught up to them or they kind of backed off. From what I was reading and watching (check out CurlTV) it sounded like they were more relaxed for the first several games.

The title refers to something I am drinking as I write this. Being a fan of egg nog, I was pleasantly surprised by this beverage-like incarnation of said flavor. Quite a bit healthier than the real stuff and much safer than an attempt at making the Real Stuff about a year ago in Oakland.

A while ago I read an article about how to write a good weblog, and one of the tips was to have a really good title to your post. That way your readers know what you are really going to be writing about, instead of when you just come up with some post title that at the time you think is clever or perhaps clever in a tongue-in-cheek way but really gives no clue about what’s going on. I’ve been wanting to write some kind of update about my curling, but just haven’t been able to come up with a good title for a post. With all the letters and cards I’ve been getting from readers requesting an update, though, I do believe it’s time to just jump in and do it, title or no title…

Michigan Man Curls More, Becomes Bespectacled, Has Breakfast

Ferndale, MI - The Detroit Curling Club has seen record numbers of new members this season, and one of those new members is Ypsilanti Township resident Benjamin Levy. Read the rest of this entry »

As I mentioned, last Wednesday I joined the Monday night curling league in addition to Wednesday. Monday has come and gone, and with it my first real curling game. The final score was 3 to 10, with my team on the losing side of that. Even so, it was a lot of fun and I think the real experience helped me out a lot. By the end I got a better feel for aiming, although getting the right weight (secret curling language for how much momentum you give the stone) is still a bit of a problem. I did get a few rocks in play, but sent many more all the way through the house (another secret curling term) and out at the back. Fortunately, I somewhat redeemed myself with my sweeping. I think I’ll make a good sweeper, which will work out well since I expect to be the lead (not-so secret curling term for the person who throws first and sweeps a lot) for a while.

The other good news is that this second day of curling hurt me much less than the first. There’s a lot of crouching down and putting weight on your knees in and quads in curling that just doesn’t happen in my day-to-day life. So far, though, it seems like I’m adjusting to that pretty quickly.

Why aren’t you curling right now?

Today was the first day of class and the Wednesday league, although for the first to league nights it’s going to be classes as well. After a slippery start, I think I pretty much got it down. I have to work on power, and everyone always has to work on targeting. I added a night to my schedule, so now I’m doing class and league Wednesdays and another league night on Mondays.

Also, in case it wasn’t clear in my last post, please do not buy me the referenced calendar. I mentioned it only because I have a fascination with unexpected combinations. Of course, a curling themed* toaster would make a great holiday gift for me.

* it turns out that themed is not a real word. Please accept my appologies.

It’s the eve before I start curling. Tomorrow evening I will take to the ice for the first time and try not to fall down too much. There has been a bit of curling news that I haven’t written about before - there will be TV coverage, although it seems like the majority is on the Canada-only network TSN. Last week I went to a welcome meeting for new members at the Detroit Curling Club and that was a very good introduction to the club and the facilities there. And this week it begins for real…

The motivation for writing anything today, though, comes not from my own excitement about getting ready to curl, but from this news piece about a 2006 curling-themed calendar. If you were to try and come up with some imagery for a curling calendar you might think of ice, brooms, rocks, maybe other winter type things like snow or ice. Perhaps some people would think of older imagery from some version of the history of the game. I myself might make it all about Scott Paper Towels. Here’s a quote from the article -

“I couldn’t, I’m too shy,” said Jennifer Jones, the defending Scott Tournament of Hearts champion from Winnipeg. “It’s very European.

“If the right people want to do it I think it’s kind of a fun idea and innovative and hopefully it will get curling some publicity.”

Yesterday I registered for curling class through the Ferndale Recreation folks. This is the class at the Detroit Curling Club that I’ve been waiting for all summer. I’m actually not sure why I didn’t just join as a regular member, since I’m certain I will anyway after the class. I’ve heard from three different people after I sent a question by e-mail (not even counting the comment here) and everything sounds just great. The class is once a week through November and then it will end just about when the second league session starts.

It looks like there may be curling on TV this fall, after all. After walking away from their contract with CBC, the CCA hasn’t been able to find another network to take over because of the threat of a lawsuit from the CBC. Nothing is set, yet, but the word on the sheets is that negotiations are somewhat actively taking place. I’ve seen brief pieces of news about this before, but the latest details come from a Globe and Mail article which is actually more about the possibly questionable 13.5% raise and $10,000 (CAD, I assume) “merit” bonus being given to the CEO of the CCA.

Dave Parkes, chief executive officer of the Canadian Curling Association and the man at the heart of curling’s controversial 2004-05 season, has received a 13.5-per-cent salary increase and a $10,000 “merit” bonus, according to two highly placed curling sources.

This isn’t exactly breaking news, but the Canadian Curling Association has walked away from a four year deal with CBC for televising curling events. If you live where I do, CBC is the extent of what we get as far as canadian television channels. CBC is threatening legal action, but it doesn’t look likely they’ll be covering any of the fun Tim Hortons sponsored events for quite some time. While I hope to get some relief through the Detroit Curling Club this fall, it’s looking like there will be no place but online to get my curling fix when the season gets going again.

Here’s a news article about it, from the news desk at CBC itself.