Canadian Gangster

In the sport of curling, we have tournaments called bonspiels. Often, for the fun of it, the bonspiel will have a theme. Players can dress to fit that theme. One such popular spiel at the Roseland Curling Club in Windsor, Ontario is called the Rum Runners. Back during Prohibition here in the States, rum was 'run' across the river from Canada into Detroit. Make sense?

As you can imagine, gangland figures were heavy into that illegal booze traffic. One of my good Canadian friends played a gangster at the 2023 Rum Runners. He had a skit of sorts where he had to play rough with the curlers, as though a mobster trying to keep them in line. 

He had a difficult time with it. "Do you know how hard it is to sound tough when saying 'eh' at the end of every line?" the man who explained. "It's hard for Canadians to be mean."

Agree?

Curlmageddon 2016

I'm home tonight after a long, extended weekend of curling. I think it may be the most I've curled in such a short time: nine games in five days.

It began with my regular Thursday league game, which we won. On Friday I played in a Tier 55 spiel in Chatham, Ontario. Tier 55 is a kind Canadian term for senior curling, which itself is a PC term for old guys trying to keep curling. Be that as it may, we went 1-1 there and finished third. We won a nice pork loin for each member of the team; it was a meat spiel. For some reason, Canada loves to have curling tournaments where the prizes are meats. I won a three pound bag of breakfast sausages at a meat spiel in Leamington, Ontario, back in January. It's a great deal for us non, non-non, vegans.

Then I curled at Roseland, my home curling club in Windsor, Ontario, on Friday night. We won.

Next came the Wild Goose Bonspiel in Kingsville, Ontario. We played two games on Saturday and two on Sunday, finishing in the C Final. We lost that, but played really well, and maybe should have won that last game. Maybe the first one too, if the skip had have made his shots. Ah well. We were 2-2, and were part of the final group which were led onto the ice by a bagpiper in a grand procession. I tell ya, few things beat being piped onto the ice in a curling bonspiel.

My regular Monday league game came last. The boys in front of me played well and we caught some breaks to end up with a win.

So Curlmageddon 2016 went well for me, thanks to the players around me. 6-3 over nine games, and we really could have easily been 9-0. Honest. But now I'm very tired and gotta get some sleep. By Wednesday I'll be fine.

But it was a great five days on the rink.