Random Updates

Due to a lot of snow, our curling game this past week has been postponed.  I guess that's what happens when you live in Minnesota.  We'll follow up on a few other items.

First on the saga of my brother's curling shoe search.  After two weeks, my brother finally received his Eagle shoes from Brooms Up Curling Supplies, but they were too big.  He has since decided to get the Goldline Shot, just like me.  At first, I didn't think he should buy shoes since he'd only get to play like 3 games in them, but it looks like there'll be another league in April, so that'll be good.

And now one of my brother's teammates is interested in getting a broom.  He asked me about the Tournament Performance Broom and the Performance Brush Fiberglass.  I haven't used either before, but both look fine to me.  Anyone have suggestions for a low cost broom that still has the swivel head?

On a related note, my brother's curling league started last week, but he couldn't make it.  One of his instructors subbed for him and his team won.  Good for them. 

And last, Second brought his baby boy to our game the week before.  Someone in Second's family made him this onesie, which I thought was cute.

My Brother's Learning to Curl #5

So last week was my brother's last class and most of the time was spent playing a six end game.  However, for my brother, they only played five and a half ends.  The reason is that, early in the game, like the first few ends, they would throw the rocks down, but because the opposite hack wasn't frozen in yet, they'd have to bring all the rocks back.  Weird, huh.  Another example of something that would never take place at the St. Paul Curling Club or any other dedicated facility.

I was curious about the ice setup, so my brother made a little video showing how they nip the ice by putting rocks in a wooden board and then  pushing it across. 

And here's a picture of how they have to put rocks on top of the hack while it freezes.  Hopefully, some day, someone with a lot of money will decide to help build a dedicated curling club out there so that they don't have to do this.

This is a picture of the scoreboard from the game that my brother played.  He was happy to have played third on the winning team.  Not that it's really that interesting of a picture for you, but good for his team.

My brother thought he played pretty well except for one rock that was supposed to be a raise that instead raised the opponents' rock.  Always a bad feeling to think that not only did you miss the shot, you made it worse.  Also, my brother's lead got all of their rocks in play except one and that was because my brother burned it.  Oops.

Anyway, my brother enjoyed things so much he's playing in the upcoming 5 week league and ordered curling shoes.  I think it's cool that they play with their own team names, which I think would be kind of fun to do here, but I understand the tradition that we have up here.  Another team came up with the team name "Shot Rock Lobsters."  I think that's kind of clever.  Because I like it so much, here are some related "Rock Lobster" videos.

Game 14 Recap

Sigh.  Another loss and the record's now 7-6.  Exactly like last week, the final score was 7-6 after an extra end.  Our opposing team was a D level team and got two points and they needed both of them.  I once subbed for a skip and this skip before the game said to the other skip, "[Harumph] You don't need that one point handicap" and so the other skip was kind of bullied into playing without the handicap.  And then the team I subbed for won by one point.  (Was that wrong?)  What sucks about this game is that I had two opportunities to win the game as my team had hammer in both the eighth end and in the extra end and I messed it up both times.  After the game, Second said, "Maybe we're not as good as we thought earlier this year."  Maybe not. 

Here's the key shot.  It's the eighth end, my team is up one, we have hammer, we're yellow, and it's my last shot.  Should've been a no brainer all takeouts end, right?  Well, there were some missed takeouts and I'm kind of left with this.  Again, there were definitely a few more rocks in play, but these are the basics.

So the shot I called was the takeout on the red stone in the center.  I had tried this shot earlier and I had a ton of weight on the shot and it just flew past it.  I put a little less on the shot this time around. Of course, I had too little weight and it curled too much.  It did raise our yellow rock, but it wasn't enough.  We went into an extra end, missed some more takeouts, and that was it. 

On a positive note, Second brought the baby and I got to hold the little guy for a little while before the game, so that was pretty cool. 

Equalizer Brooms and a DIY Idea

So I have a post on new broom technology and that post might be obsolete already as shown by this article and this one.  Apparently the Equalizer has been around for a while now, but I only just recently saw it and I also just heard about it on an episode of The Curling Show where Glenn Howard was a guest.

 
I find it interesting that in the first article, it says that Kevin Martin doesn't need the Equalizer broom because his sweepers are so good already.  That should be in the ad campaign or something.  "With this broom, your team can sweep as well as Kevin Martin's team." 

I saw a tweet recently (I don't remember who) asking if they could just put some aluminum foil on their broom and get the same effect.  My guess is no, though I'm sure that won't stop people from trying.  My guess is you'd get better results with an actual heat reflecting material.  Not sure where one buys it in bulk, but you could take apart something like this Headring and use that as your reflector.  Just a thought. 

My Brother Wants to Buy Curling Shoes

So I think my brother's going to buy some curling shoes for the upcoming curling league.  He has two reasons for this.  The first is that his feet are getting cold.  Standing on ice for a few hours is pretty cold and on arena ice, you really don't have anywhere you can stand/sit for a while where you're not on ice.  (Yet another reason why I'm spoiled with the St. Paul Curling Club.)  Second, sometimes my brother is in the hack and checking that his foot is in the slider.  In my experience, you might mess with it a little and that can be a little annoying.  Also, some of the curlers that are in his class have had their sliders come off and slide across the ice. 

Anyway, he ordered the Tournament Eagle shoes as they're the cheapest shoes out there.  One of his instructors suggested that he get a shoe with a full slider rather than the two half sliders so this shoe would fit there.  I'm slightly skeptical as Clean Sheet Curling Supplies says the shoes are made of vinyl and that just seems kind of cheap to me.  I don't really think of vinyl as being a warm material.  However, the Curling Proshop says that the Eagle's made of leather, so I don't really know. 

As it turns out, my brother ordered the shoes from Brooms Up Curling Supplies and they didn't have his size in stock.  They're sending him some shoes anyway that are a size off in case they fit.  In case they don't fit, what do you suggest? 

My Brother's Learning to Curl #4

First, a correction.  In my last post on this, I quoted my brother as saying, "You should see how ghetto it is."  He wants to clarify that he thinks that where he curls is just fine.  The quote was taken out of context a little bit and the line was said in reference to the fact that I would think the place is ghetto.  And relative to the St. Paul Curling Club, it kinda sounds like it.  But to reiterate, my brother likes the place where he curls. 

My brother was the skip for the first time at this last lesson, mainly because his other teammates didn't want to do it.  To sum up how it went, his Facebook status update that night was, "Didn't like being the skip."  Also, he skipped the first end and then made someone else skip the second end.  I guess it was just the constant pressure of coming up with a new shot like every minute. 

He also learned about calling for sweeping.  There was a takeout and the rock started to curl.  He didn't see it until it was too late.  I've been there.  And then sometimes he wasn't loud enough. 

And then he texted later asking about where the broom should go depending on where he wanted the shot to end up.  I'm kind of surprised by the text because isn't this something that should've been covered in the class?  There have been four classes already.  Maybe I'll write more on this in a later post. 

He'll have his last class coming up soon and they're going to play a 6 end game.  Ooh.

Curling Source Shot of the Week #2

No curling game this week, so we'll go elsewhere for a curling scenario.  Curling Source has another shot of the week.  Here's the situation: "It is the 5th end of an 8 end game, your are loosing [sic] 4-2. You have hammer and are shooting blue with just your last rock to come. Would you go for 2 or take the safe 1?"

1. Long cross house double for 2
2. Hack weight hit through port for 2
3. Draw for 1
4. Runback either blue onto yellow for 2

For the first option, which I assume means taking out both yellow rocks, there'd have to be a lot more guards up there to make that the only option I'd take.  I also feel the hack weight hit option has a higher degree of difficulty since it'd have to get by both guards and it requires a fairly specific weight. 

So now I'd have to decide between the draw or the runback.  Assuming I have made a draw or two already in the game, I guess I would just go for the draw.  As much as I'd love to go for two, I'd rather go for the easier point and take my chances later in the game.  I'd lean towards the runback if I had crappy draws earlier in the game. 

My Brother's Learning to Curl #3

"I feel like I'm getting better" my brother says.  That's good to hear.  They had 45 minutes of practice throwing during which my brother continually hogged his rocks.  As a result, during the following two end game, my brother was designated to play lead.  Of course, he overthrew his shots during the game and a center guard became a rock on the button.  Still, that's much better than hogging rocks.

My brother also learned one sign for T line weight.  His skip had actually curled before in Europe (What's he doing in a five week "Learn to Curl" class?) and had his arm across his chest when he called the shot.  The instructor had to explain to my brother what that meant.  Though it's not like one could expect my brother (or I presume any of the other students in the class) to really have that feel for T line weight.  That stuff is so approximate anyways.  On a somewhat related note, I remember my first year, one of my teammates (also a first year) just always seemed to throw as hard as she could.  This was good for takeouts (when she hit the broom), but I remember when I called a shot that wasn't a takeout, I would always be practically begging her to throw it lighter.  I guess I just want to say that if you're playing with someone who's new, I would say that it's easier to call weight relative to their last shot rather than expecting them to really know what T line is (or whatever weight you call).  And be happy that they reasonably hit the broom and that their rock is still in play.

Anyway, then my brother started talking about how they finished the game and then removing the hacks and putting the rocks back in the freezer.  Again, this is something that I can't even imagine doing.  Another quote from my brother: "You should see how ghetto it is."  Not to say that where he curls isn't nice, but I guess I'm really spoiled here.

Game 13 Recap

Another heartbreaking loss brings the record down to 7-5.  Starting off the second half 1-2 is pretty bad for our second half championship chances.  The final score was 7-6 after an extra end.  The opposing team was also a B level team so no points for either team and it was nice to have the whole team back together again.  This was a fairly memorable game for me so we'll go through the last few ends.

In the shot below, it's the sixth end.  The score is tied at 4-4 and the opposing tam has hammer.  My team is yellow and it's my first stone.  I felt good that we had a lot of guards and I thought we'd have some good opportunities with that.  (In an earlier end, the opposing team had six guards in front of the house and there was basically nothing for my shots.)  At this point, we can see that their rock is just barely closer.  We figured that our rock only has to move up by an inch or two to be shot. 

As indicated by the arrows, there were two shots available.  Lead and I were thinking about going for the double raise (the arrows on the right) and Vice and Second were thinking about going for the takeout (arrow on the left).  The double raise was the more difficult shot but if made, it would take some sort of double takeout to remove it.  However, if I made the takeout and got the roll, that might put the team in position to steal two.  I thought that possibility was enticing, but I ended up going just a little too wide for the takeout.  As it turns out, their next shot was a guard on that takeout and then my next shot was the original double raise that I had first envisioned, which I also missed.  They scored one for the end; it's now 4-5.

So now we're in the seventh end and while my team has hammer, we're in a pretty tight spot for my first shot (I think it was my first shot).  They have shot rock and we figured we had two choices again. There's the double take out (arrows on the left) or the raise takeout (arrows on the right).  I felt like the angle on the double takeout was easier to hit, but there's also a good chance that you only get the front stone.  The angle for the runback was more difficult as it has to get by the guard and hit at a specific point, but I felt a little better about moving our rock instead of theirs. 

Unfortunately, I barely missed the runback.  They ended up stealing one so now the score is 4-6 and we're in the eighth end.  My team again has hammer and they did very well placing their guards again.  (I think we had some high guards in play, but I don't remember and they're not really relevant here.)  Just to let you know that I can occasionally make good shots, this was the setup for what could've been the last shot of the game.  I didn't feel good about trying to go through any of the ports so the runback was the shot, but I did make it to send it to an extra end.  

However, my team didn't have hammer and we would only be playing one stone each.  Lead and Second's rocks ended up being too light.  Vice made a takeout and then I made the shot in the four foot so below is what the opposing skip had to deal with.  Of course, in retrospect, I should've had less broom so that my rock would be behind the guards, but we were worried it might curl a little too much and then crash into the guards. 

But the opposing skip made his takeout for one and took the game.  Oh well.