Bonspiel Update

So I have found a bonspiel to go to.  I will be at the Fireball Bonspiel with my brother, a Bond Girl, and her husband.  All are flying from California just for this.  Well, my brother is also going to spend Thanksgiving up here. 

Since a Bond Girl is involved, we are likely to stream our games online.  Our video stream would be much better if there's commentary, and as I've written previously, doing curling commentary is a lot of fun, especially if you're with a friend.  We would love it if you did commentary for our games.  I'll have to talk to the Bond Girls about this, but maybe we can give you a Bond Girls sticker or some other swag as a token of our appreciation.

Also, my brother leaves late on Saturday night of the bonspiel so if we're playing on Sunday (which would be a first for me in several years), we'd need a sub.  (In his defense, the plane tickets for leaving the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend were a lot cheaper compared to Sunday.)  Anyway, let me know if you could be an alternate for my team. 

Looking forward to it and maybe I'll meet some of you there. 

Game 2 Recap

Our game 2 opponent was a fairly new team to the club as this season is only their second season.  We got a 2 point handicap as a result.  Lead was back for the game, but I learned that Vice was sick roughly an hour before the game.  E-mails to my normal subs and asking people on Twitter did not come up with anything so we played with three people.  Lead and Second had good draw weight for most of the game, which made things so much easier for me.  We stole several ends and we won the game 7-3.  This brings our record to 1-1.  For the "competitive" teams, our record remains at 0-1.  (I've decided to separately keep track of our record against "competitive" teams to give myself an idea as to what would have happened if the league realignment had actually occurred."  The opposing skip has definitely improved from last year.  There were several ends where we stole one point, but if it weren't for his shots, we probably could have scored more than one.

In this end, the opposing team has hammer, my team is yellow, and I believe we were up by two.  It's the opposing skip's first shot.  I was thinking the easiest shot would be to take out the rock in the top of the house and try to get a double.  With the curl on the right side, it may have been possible to draw on that side; shot rock was probably unlikely, but saving two was possible.  The opposing skip went for the hit and roll with the rock on the left side.  He almost got the roll, but was still able to get second shot rock. 

I don't remember what I did on my shot.  But the opposing skip has a few options.  One option is raise on the left side, but you need some curl on the shot to get around the guard.  Another possibility is to go down the middle.  While that shot would have been interesting (who doesn't want to see lots of rocks crashing into each other?), it's possible that their own rock would have been taken out and that would be much worse; at best they would only be scoring one.  I guess it might have been possible to go for a double raise or something like that off the guard, but that's still just as dangerous.  He went for the draw and missed.  To me though, getting the hit and roll on his first shot was still a very good outcome.

Game 1 Recap

First, an update on the A More Competitive League post.  I guess not enough teams opted in on the competitive league (or maybe it was logistically difficult to do that grouping).  Looking at the schedule, I count 7 teams from the competitive team list.  There are 10 teams in the other league, including the very accomplished curler.  So fairly even.

Lead couldn't make the game.  (Curling season came up on us a little early.)  Here's a tip.  Don't schedule a sub who's running the Twin Cities Marathon that morning.  Needless to say, we ended up playing with just three people. 

On a side note, my team has a game scheduled on 11/27, which is the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  Let me know if you want to sub with my team that night.

Back to the game.  Our first game was against a team on the competitive team list and there was no handicap.  (I assume that the teams all get the same handicap from the end of last year, so I'm guessing we're both B level.)  Vice and I got out on the ice about 15 minutes before the game and we could both tell that we were a little rusty.  Perhaps not surprisingly, to sum up, my team really had trouble with weight the whole game.  Mainly we were throwing light, which was kinda tough on Second who had to sweep a rock all the way most of the night.  The opposing team stole a point the first three ends (my team had trouble with takeouts those first three ends).  We were able to score two in the fourth end (I somehow got a double takeout.)

So now in the fourth end, they have hammer and my team just had nothing on this end.  I'm looking at something like this for my second shot.  (My team is yellow.)

As I saw it, I could try to draw on the left side to try to save two points or go for the raise on the right and possibly get a steal.  My feeling was that I could miss the draw completely and crash into the guard, not to mention I hadn't figured out my draw weight yet.  So I went for the raise but missed the angle on that.  The other team was able to draw on the left side and scored 4. 

We played two more ends after that and my team did score one point for both ends, but it wasn't enough and I called it after the seventh.  In retrospect, we were playing a good team and since my team struggled with our shots, the game could've been a lot worse.  But next week, we'll get Lead back and we'll have the whole gang back together.