After successfully flying in from Calgary without delays, icky went to curl just several hours later on 3.5 hours of sleep and whatever shut-eye he could get on the plane. Lots was at stake in the final game of the draw, including a chance to hang on to Div B status. Icky was confident after coming off a strong performance against Team Elgie, but had to fight the lack of sleep. In addition, Team Chang was up against Team Marianchuk who recently won zones to qualify for regionals. But motivating the team was the presence of shang who came with a poster (see end of post) and ix3y's mom's peanut butter cookies. Team Chang awaiting their opponents:
Icky at the other end of the ice, with Wayne Linkletter (in blue) looking on. Wayne was looking for icky to do him yet another favour in addition to letting him win both the mens and mixed games this draw: he wanted icky to win to avoid any possibility of moving down.
End 1: After winning hammer, both teams play an okay first end culminating with Vicki's short draw to sit 1. With second shot, icky hits the open Marianchuk stone in an attempt for 2 but rolls out to take 1 as shown.
End 2: Marianchuk sat two in the 12-foot buried with us having shot rock behind a centre guard as shown. Icky plays two good guards, leaving marianchuk with a long long runback for 3 which she does not convert.
End 3: The end looked messy for a while. Team Chang had control of the so called "control zone" in front of the house, but Vicki had two rocks buried behind all game. Icky's first shot was a runback of Vicki's stone onto her shot rock, but the hit was dead on, leaving the contacted stone in place as shot. After Vicki makes a hit and roll into the house, icky is left with the following.
Success! Icky hears one of Vicki's front end say "fuck" after the shot was made. Marianchuk was content to take one on an open draw but we sweep it out to blank. Team Chang continues to lead 2-0.
End 4: Team Chang continues to apply the pressure and leaves Vicki with the following.
She attempts a difficult runback of the red stone by their feet onto their red onto our blue in an attempt to take 2. Not sure the top red stone would have stayed second shot in the house if it was made properly, but they miss and the lead extends to 3.
End 5: Things start to look ugly really fast in this end. The series shows the progression of red stones in the house.
However, Marianchuk's vice's first rock comes deep into the house, which leaves icky an easy chance for a double or possibly even triple (Vicki was sitting 4 at the time). Icky pulls through with a nose hit to get two out. Vicki attempts a tap back of our rock but somehow nudges it so our rock sits frozen onto their rock in the back 4 foot and second shot. Icky cleanly removes the shot stone Vicki just threw with an "oh shit" shot. The only thing he could not do was jam as that would leave the possibility of 3. Vicki has a draw with backing for 1 but the sweepers jump on it too late as they waited for the curl. Team Chang leads 4-0. Meanwhile, icky notices Wayne looking over to our scoreboard as they trail in their game.
End 6: Team Chang ops to play a very open end. Peels worked splendidly and Vicki was forced to play a raise against 2 to take 1. She finally makes one.
End 7: Team Marianchuk gets one buried deep behind cover early. Team Chang successfully makes a series of peels. Vicki's first shot comes in deep, setting up an easy double. Icky makes no mistake. Shang says she was gonna take a pic but saw one of her front end mutter profanity and decided against pics at that moment. Vicki attempts to freeze to our shooter but leaves it in the top 12, giving icky a chance to draw way wide for 2. As he expected, the ice was fudgy and they were resigned with a 5-1 lead playing the last.
End 8: Iszy plays two beautiful throw-throughs.
This is followed by 2 perfect peels by ix3y and another from ikey.
Ikey is left with an open hit on a wide Marianchuk stone. It was a little outside and makes contact as shown.
Icky then uses all his might to sweep that rock from one side of the house to the other. Here's the action shot.
He just gets it out. You can see Vicki extending her hand out to shake my hand as she concedes defeat. Wayne Linkletter is noticeably happy as he was trailing by several points and looking like he was to be defeated, so needed us to win against Vicki.
A great game from lead to skip. The only complaint was ikey turning his inturn hits inside all game resulting in hits/peels that contacted the opposite side of the rock, but the result was still clean removals of opposition stones.
Post Game: We learn that Vicki was off to Kingston next morning for Regionals. She bowed out in the double-knockout event after losing her first, winning her next two, but then losing her second to Pascale Letendre (Jenn Hanna's former vice). Team Chang + Shang + the front end on Vicki's team + Aidan sit and enjoy cookies. mmmm... cookies. Ix3y decides it'd be funny to spill water on the skip. Aidan cracks wise jokes about icky being all icky after the spill.
And of course Shang's poster was very very pretty. Here we are posing with it. For more than obvious reason's, ikey's name is in pink and his dot above the i was a flower.
The win also means we ended in a 3 way tie at 2-3 but because of record, both Linkletter and Chang stay in B while Marianchuk and The Varsity Girls drop to Div C. Bob Reynolds and Tony Simms are dropping down to B and Aidan Ritchie and Michael Cook are climbing up to B.
In Friday mixed action, Team Martin easily disposes of Team Taylor 11-3.
The curling stats are as follows (I have no idea why there is this huge gap! scroll down...):
| Team | Draw 1 | Draw 2 | Draw 3 | Cummulative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12-11-2 | 14-10-0 | 0-0-0 | 26-21-2 | |
| 1-3-1 | 2-3-0 | 0-0-0 | 3-6-1 | |
| 2-2-1 | 3-2-0 | 0-0-0 | 5-4-1 | |
| 3-2-0 | 2-2-0 | 0-0-0 | 5-4-0 | |
| 3-2-0 | 4-1-0 | 0-0-0 | 7-3-0 | |
| 3-2-0 | 3-2-0 | 0-0-0 | 6-4-0 |
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