Back in the Saddle

Yesterday my team curled in the Senior Bonspiel at the Bowling Green Curling Club in Ohio. It's a good club and a fun place to be. We went 1-1, finishing fifth. I skipped the second game and we got some breaks and the boys played good in front of me. We won it, 10-5.

It's the first game I've played skip in around 7 years. I don't mind saying I was intimidated by the prospect. I threw last rocks almost all the time for around twenty years, but you need a different mentality for being skip. You have to want it, you have to want to throw the rocks which generally mean the most to the outcome of a curling match. 

But as I said, we caught a couple breaks and the boys played well in front of me. I did manage to shoot a tight port to punch out a stone to score four. We still had time to play, but I knew with that four spot we would win.

It felt good. Yes, the shot, but being skip again really made my day. I appreciate the guys letting me. I've said many times that curling is a great game, but it's the people who are the best.

Marty's a dumb expletive sometimes

We won our curling match last night, but no thanks to me. I sure tried to mess it up.

We dominated - absolutely dominated - the first 6 ends. We controlled the game even until skip rocks (my stones, the last two of each end) in the 7th end. And then I brain cramped and let the opposition back into the game. And I was furious with myself.

They had two scoring stones, behind a guard (non-scoring stones which protected them). No matter, we were up 5. So what did I do? I decided to try to tap one of our rocks into scoring position. I thought, we can tap ours up. It's there. And a little voice said, 'Run the guard'. Get it out of the way.

We can tap ours up, I thought as I went to throw my stone. The little voice said, run the guard.

I got down in the hack, where we throw stones from, and thought, we can tap ours up. The little voice insisted, run the guard.

I didn't run the guard. I tapped an opposition stone in so they could score three.

That's when I exploded at myself. All the way down the ice it was, Expletive it, Marty, you dumb expletive. Run the expletive guard, you stupid expletive. That's curling One-Zero-Expletive-One: run the expletive guard. That was chicken expletive, Marty, chicken expletive. I haven't been that mad at myself in a long time. Maybe never.

But the boys played a solid 8th end, my vice-skip calmed me down as he should, and I made the last shot of the game for a 7-6 win. Yet I am still, ah, quite annoyed with myself for nearly blowing an otherwise great game.

Dumb expletive, expletive, expletive.