My Greatest Curling Shot

Below is a picture of what has to be my greatest/luckiest curling shot ever. 

My team is red and after getting the guard, our opponents drew to the back of the house behind the guard.  But then everybody just constantly made freezes.  By the way, my team is down four and we're in the seventh end.  We're feeling a little low because at one point we were up 4-1, so things hadn't been going our way for quite some time. 

Anyway, the opposing skip throws a perfect rock, basically right on the button and nearly frozen to everything else.  It's now my last rock (we have hammer).  There was some debate over going on the right side or the left side, but I felt more comfortable with the way it was curling on the right side and chose the shot shown by the blue arrow.  I threw that shot with way more weight than I ever throw.  Of course, that made me less accurate, but miracle of miracles, I hit the guard up front, which then went to the spot between our rock and theirs.  As if magically, their rock went to the side and my team scored four to tie the game.  Lead believes that the drag effect came into play here and I would agree because I don't really see how else this could've happened. 

We did lose the game in the next end (Why else would I be blogging right now instead of getting ready for my Sunday 8:30 game?) but this might be the greatest and luckiest shot I'll ever make.

Curling Source Shot of the Week #1

The Curling Source just posted their "Shot of the Week".  "It is a tie game in the 8th end of an 8 end game. You are shooting yellow and have last rock. It is your third's second rock of the end. What should you do?"
1. Hit and roll for shot
2. Draw top 4 for shot
3. Peel the guard
4. Run/Peel the gaurd into the top blue stone

Just thinking about my team, the easiest shot is a takeout for shot rock.  Now, to precisely get the correct roll is always kind of random for my team.  We're thinking about it, but we're never really sure whether or not it will happen.  And my first fear is always whether or not a shot will make it around a guard so I might call for a sweep a little too early just to make sure that I at least get the desired takeout.  And then once the rock gets past the guard, then I'll see about getting the roll. 
However, in this particular scenario, I'm more likely to call a freeze for Vice, though I'll ask for back line weight.  Ideally, the freeze makes would make our rock very difficult to takeout.  Depending on where it lands, it could be shot, or I could throw a rock that makes it shot.  If there's too much weight on that the shot and it ends up moving that stone back some (or out), that's not a terrible scenario either.  Our rock would most likely be open for a takeout, but as my team has hammer, I think I'm OK taking my chances with that, at least against the teams that I see on a weekly basis.  There's also the possibility that the shot ends up being a draw behind the guards for shot and I'll take that too.  I ask for more weight than is necessary mainly because I don't want the shot to be short and then act as a guard and then I'll have to do a more difficult runback.

Choice 4 would probably never occur to me.  To do a raise with that much distance needed is just too difficult for me to get that angle correct.  I think that's when someone knows that they're really good, when they can call and consistently make a raise from that far up.  But while peeling the guard isn't my first instinct, it's probably not a bad strategy if you have hammer.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.  Post your thoughts here or at The Curling Source.

Sub Game Recap

For the first time this season, I subbed and I'm happy to say that I helped the team get their second win of the season.

I actually played pretty poorly.  I had 3 rocks in a row that I overthrew.  In my defense, the ice was really fast.  By that third rock (a guard), I came out so slow that I thought I was going to hog it, but the rock stopped in the four foot.  I also had my first stumble in a while.  Basically the entire game, the skip called for me to slide to the right.  For some reason, the only time I was going left, I fell over.  I just felt my broom kind of slip and then I was down. 

So after six ends, my team was up 4.  My shots of the end were a guard and a rock in the house (which was also shot rock), but by my skip's turn, those rocks were long gone.  Takeouts were missed by the team's second and third and now the opposing team was sitting two.  Opposing team also has hammer.

My skip called and made the double takeout on rocks 1 and 2 and his rock was wide open for a takeout.  His next shot was a missed takeout and all of a sudden the opposing team scored four for the end and tied the game. 

I was thinking about this shot though and thought that maybe the best shot was to instead play the freeze to rock 1.  If you get the freeze perfectly, you've saved two and you have a shot at getting a takeout on the next shot.  If it's short, you have a chance to raise on your next shot.  If there's too much weight, you probably move rock 2, but your rock likely stays and is not as wide open for a takeout.  Now, I know that a hard takeout is the easier shot, but I hope that I at least think about this possibility in the future.

Back to the game though, they scored four, but we had hammer in the eighth end and fortunately we scored 1 to win it 7-6.

On playing lead, I sometimes forget how much my other guys work than me.  I usually wear gloves, a hat, and a long sleeve tee (pants too!) when I curl.  By the fourth end, gloves and hat were off and my sleeves were up.  Maybe I'm just not in good shape, but I don't think I'd want to wear a sweater the way some of these other teams do.  But when you play lead, it's kinda nice to not have to think as much.

Game 3 Recap

Another loss for my team which brings our record to 1-2.  The final score was 6-5 and it was a close game the whole way.  I even had a chance to win it in on my last shot but totally choked and the shot was short.  It was probably off line too, but it didn't have a chance.  We were up against an A-level team and my team (who I've now deduced is C-level) got 2 points.  It felt good to know that my team can kind of hang with an A-level team.  We actually beat this team last year, though it kind of came on a technicality (they moved a rock before it was scored and decided to give us the point for it.)  But this is a team that should be way better than us since they play and bonspiel all the time. 

So the situation was tied after the seventh end and my team had hammer for the final end.  Their first shot was in the house, as shown here:

I decided to call a freeze, but it ended up a little short, like this.  In retrospect, that might have been the call that ruined the end.  I only had to score one to win.  Maybe it would have been best to keep everything clean so that I'd have a clear shot at the end. 

As it turns out, basically every rock was still in play with 1 rock left to go for each skip.  It something like this.  There were a bunch of guards up front, but I don't really remember where they all were.  Our two (red) rocks up front were supposed to guard against raises, but I guess they ended up too close to my oppononents' stones.  The opposing skip made a beautiful shot for one.

Supposedly, cursing's not allowed on the ice, but I definitely let out an F-bomb after that shot.  The pressure was on and I couldn't make my shot.  Oh well.  It was a good game though.