Marty's best curling shot. Ever. Or, just see black.

I know, I know. It's gauche to brag about yourself. True bad form. But I'm about to do it anyway. To be fair, though, I'm also bragging on the young man who made me believe that the best curling shot of my life was possible.

We were throwing yellow stones, and we were in trouble. With my throwing the last shot of the end a black stone was the shot, scoring, stone of the end. Jordan saw a tight port, a path between two stones, which we could shoot our stone through to knock the black one out and score ourselves. It was a tight port; neither of us were sure it was wide enough for another stone to fit through. Yet it seemed all we had. "Just see black," Jordan told me. He meant to simply ignore all else and concentrate on hitting the black rock.

Admittedly, I wasn't completely sold on it. But I went down the ice thinking it was all I had. When I turned to reexamine things, Jordan said again, "Just see black". Confidence came over me, and I thought, 'Yeah. Just see black.'

He put his broom down. I threw my rock. I hit the line, I threw the right weight. Brad, Jordan's dad, started sweeping it. Jordan yelled, "He's got it!" Brad kept sweeping. Jordan's voice jumped an octave. "He's got it!" He yelled again, shrilly.

Brad stopped sweeping.

We went through that port and hit black and scored. I doubt there was a thirty-second of an inch on either side of that rock. The gallery whooped and hollered, and some banged the glass which separated the curling ice from the viewing area. I whooped; Jordan let out a yell. Several observers came to me afterwards and told me it was one great curling shot. A television shot.

Jordan deserves the credit. He saw it, called it, believed in it. And that made me believe too.