Hurry Hard!

It was an incredible week of curling after having to work the monday to wednesday 12 hour day shift.

On thursday, my men's team came away with a 6-6 tie against another UofT team. It was the first time we lead in a game all season and the first time we stole points in an end. I also tested out my new curling shoe. But in the 6th end, I busted it by pulling it right off the shoe.

Then on friday, I fixed my shoe and played in the sheridan park league at high park. This time, my contact cementing was done impecably and the slider felt excellent. My team won 11-6 (it was actually 11-1 going into the last end).

And then, with 3 great fans cheering us on, team martin played against team sawchuk. Here is how the game went:

End 1
This was the highlight end for icky. After losing the coin toss, icky's last rock had him facing 2 blue opponent stones (1 & 2) in the back 4-foot of the house. icky decided the best chance to escape from a bad situation was to hit rock 2 going through the port of guards and making a tiny roll in front of rock 1 as shown. icky made no mistake, going cleanly through the port, hitting rock 2, and rolling right in front of rock 1. The other team from the adjacent sheet was impressed as they came over and told icky what a nice shot that was. The sawchuks were left with a difficult through the port draw to sit on top of rock 3 but wrecked on the guards. It was a steal of one - our first steal of the season!


End 2
Team sawchuk takes one with the hammer to tie up the game.

End 3
Sitting two with the hammer, icky has a cold draw for 3 but comes up heavy. Two points puts team martin in fron 3-1.

End 4
This was an ugly end for team martin. Several missed takeouts forced icky into playing a difficult hit and roll to try to minimize damage. Unfortunately, he rolled the wrong way, leaving the stone 2/3 exposed but as shot rock. The sawchuks attempted to remove that stone and score 5 points, but after a lot of sweeping and one of their sweepers doing a 'sawchuk twizzle', they managed only one point by raising their stone in. Team martin survived a scare and clings on to a 3-2 lead.

End 5
A well played end by the front end of team martin allowed icky to make a draw to anywhere in the 8-foot or better for two points. Perfect aim, good weight, and excellent sweeping judegement equated to a perfect draw. Team martin now leads 5-2.

End 6
Team sawchuk was sitting shot and second shot for most of the end, but team martin rallied, eventually sitting second, third and fourth shot. icky plugs up the hole with a guard on last rock, forcing sawchuk to have no shot for two points. It is one point for team martin and the lead shrinks to 5-3.

End 7
Beacuse of time constraints, we are limited to 7 ends. With hammer and up by two, team martin tries to play an open end by hitting sawchuk stones. A couple of errant attempts leave sawchuk sitting two behind a centre guard. However, chip saves the day by making two fantastic hits, reducing the sawchuks to just one stone in the house. Knowing that the sawchuks had only one rock left, team martin decided to play a guard to prevent a draw into the rings by team sawchuk. The guard wasn't great, but it did reduced the hole slightly. Team sawchuk's final draw was well short. Not needing to throw his final stone for victory, icky concedes one point in the 7th end. Team martin wins 5-4 in a very fun match.

Extra Ends
michy is surprised with birthday cake. she was duped into thinking bhavin, peter, and justin were part of our fan club, but in fact they were in on the surprise birthday. Happy birthday once again to our wonderful lead (who had a bunch of wipe outs this week).