Draw 3 Game 1: icky vs ichy

First men's league game back featured a match between Team Martin and Team McKenzie, who features icky's old skip, ichy, at second stones.

End 1: Team McKenzie struggles dearly with reading the ice and throwing the rocks well. A nice hit and roll by icky followed by a final rock miss by McKenzie leads to an open draw for - count 'em up Vic - one, two, three, four, five for Team Martin. For those who don't know what I'm referring to, watch this youtube clip. The reference is at 2:25, but the entire countdown is pretty good, especially if you know Vic Rauter.

End 2: After some heavy and offline guard attempts by Team Martin's third, McKenzie's third was left a huge pocket to draw / rub and roll to sit on the button for shot. They nail it to sit as follows. But icky had some tricks left in his Christmas stocking, negotiating the guard and making a delicate raise, redirect takeout to sit five. McKenzie's first draw attempt is short, allowing icky to guard. On their last, still facing five, McKenzie manages to put his rock biting the 8-foot to cut us down to a paltry four. The lead is 9-0.


End 3: They take 1 to get on the board. Meanwhile, two blank ends has already amassed between Ritchie and Shepherd.

End 4: We take one more, after icky misses an open hit and stick for 3. The opposing skip calls it a day, although the rest of their team seemed to want to play a couple more for practice. MAKE the final, 10-1 (in 4 ends).

Endnotes: This was icky's shortest game EVER! Meanwhile, two more blank ends between Shepherd and Ritchie (for a total of 4) has Ritchie leading 2-1 playing the last without hammer. Shepherd had a draw to the 4-foot for the tie, but elected to play a triple for the win which he jams. Ritchie takes one more for a 3-1 blowout! Meanwhile, a huge upset on sheet 2 as Grinspun defeats Gosselin. With the win, we've now narrowed the President's Trophy gap to 15 points (1.5 wins).