The Granite

We won last night's curling game at the Windsor Granite Club 6-4 when I made the very last shot, a relatively easy pick where I simply hit the opponent's scoring stone out of the rings, leaving us with two points and the win. The boys played well in front of me, we caught a couple breaks, and I felt I owed them that last shot after having cost the team two points earlier in the game with poor throws. We've now won three of our last four after a long stretch of mediocre to poor play; can we start the season over, please?

I've played in the Windsor Granite Club for most of the last thirty years. To my knowledge, it's the oldest continuous curling league in the Windsor-Detroit area. Yes, the Detroit Curling Club has been around longer yet had no facility for several years in the mid to late 1990s. The Granite has been in play unbroken since 1960. Somewhat ironically and interestingly, the Granite began at the old Detroit club at Forest and Sixth, just five blocks from when I've lived all my life, before transferring to Windsor when the city opened a rink in I think 1979.

But I fear for the league's future. We have seven teams, the least I've seen by far, and I worry that is unsustainable. We need more bodies, more folks to curl with us. There's history there, tradition, even if that only means something to a few of us. 

All good things and all that, and honestly requires I say that it would be no real tragedy if it ended. The world has and will suffer worse injury. Still, for guys like me, it's the Granite. It's my curling home. I don't really want to move.