On my drive to Winnipeg to play in my first competitive bonspiel of the 2009 season, I can only report that I was less than enthusiastic. It's been a rough season thus far and very disappointing to say the least. I didn't know what to expect playing this past weekend with Tracey Lavery, Jennifer, and Kara, and quite frankly was less than confident in myself and my own abilities.
The one thing that I love the most in this world is curling. I have missed it dearly, and going from curling twice a week to sparing occasionally in the local league here in town left me feeling like I'd lost my security blanket. Needless to say the competition in a REC league is far from what I'm used to and extremely difficult as a competitive curler to embrace even for the fun of it.
Here's what the draw looked like. http://www.curlmanitoba.org/eventtree.php?txtEventID=1666
We played our first game at the Granite Curling club right downtown Winnipeg. What a nice club, with a lot of personality and character. We won that game, I don't recall the score, but we won none the less. We played well and quickly got very comfortable with each other on the ice. Kara, Jennifer and I were able to talk and discuss freely about strategy, weight and time. It was very comfortable and they were very welcoming to me.
With this win we played at 8am the next morning at the Pembina Curling club.(I would have taken some pictures but my camera battery was dead. Boo). I stayed with my old friend and previous Jr curling competitor Karen Klein at her home in Tyndall. It's about 45 minutes away. She was also playing in this spiel, but not in the Birth section, the competitive section. She didn't play until 11:15 the next morning.
We won our second game which put us into a qualifier game against Kaileigh Strath and a colleague of mine Leslie Wilson. They played well, and we didn't. It was definitely our worst game played that weekend. With this loss we dropped to the B side qualifier which was basically right after the previous game. This would make our third game of the day. We won the B qua lifer and headed into the championship round. First game was at 9AM on Sunday morning against former Jr. Manitoba Champion Calleen Neufeld. We won. It was most definitely the best game we played thus far and the team was really gelling and coming together. It felt great and we were all in a zone and extremely focused. Our semi-final game we were not so fortunate. The score did not dictate how the game really went and we unfortunately lost 8-0. We were in control the majority of the game, but it seemed to come down to one shot every end. Once we were off the ice apparently the consensus from the spectators was that Tracey's last rock was a dud and ran straight. Oddly enough once we reflected back on this between all of us and remembering the outcome of the shots she did have to make with her last one, it became quite clear that the consensus was right. How unfortunate we didn't pick up on this during the game. It is one thing to be able to identify if there is a problem with the rocks you're throwing, but there is the other extreme as well.
Regardless it was a wonderful weekend and I had a fantastic time with these girls. It made up for a lot of the disappointments that have occurred this season, and restored my confidence and my drive to succeed in this sport. I cannot give enough praise to these girls I played with. I did not know them very well at all, but what a great group they are. They maintained such high and positive attitudes as well as exhibited much grace and etiquette on and off the ice.
I can't go on enough about the three of them. What a pleasure to play with them/for them. It was the best experience to date. Although we lost out I was on such a high from the experience I became a chatter box. I could not shut up. Viewing from afar...embarrassing, but I could not contain my excitement and enthusiasm.
So here's a shout out to Tracey, Jennifer, Kara and Danielle(who I spared for)and Coach Gerry and there family and friends. The pleasure was all mine!
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