2008 Junior Men’s Provincial Curling Championships

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THE MAIN EVENT

 

Ladies and gentleman, the time has finally come. As you may have noticed there wasn’t any update on my blog for a long time. Yes, there wasn’t even a single update in december! But the time of waiting has finally come to an end.

The reason why I didn’t have any time to update the blog in december was the following. My curling team competed in the junior men coastal playdowns in the beginning of the month and qualified after an amazing weekend with five wins out of seven games officially for the provincials of British Columbia. After this it was clear for us being in the underdog position that we would have to get on the ice as much as possible to get prepared for the provincials. So there wasn’t any time left for updating my homepage.

Anyways the BC provincials are going to take place in Port Alberni and will go on for 6 days beginning on January first. We will compete as one of the top eight teams in BC and fight for the title and the ticket to nationals.

I will try to write a little report every day so that you are able to follow our results. Furthermore you can follow the games live on the internet on www.playdowns.com

So wish us luck!

 

 

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December 31st – the first day

The day had finally come and we left Victoria at 12.30 heading up island to Port Alberni where the 2008 Junior Men’s Provincial Curling Championships should take place. After three hours of driving along beautiful canadian landscapes we arrived at our first stop, Cathedral Grove, a park in which the biggest trees on the planet are located. After the nice little walk trough the woods we continued our journey until we arrived in the late afternoon.

A meet and greet at seven was the first official thing standing on the program. Just two hours later we found ourselves back in our rooms where we were surprised by fake champagne and a little „pre new years eve party“. We let the day come to an end with a nice little round of texas hold’em with our friends from the rival Cave rink. Even though it was new years eve we had to go to bed early and get ready for the long week of curling. Good night and happy new year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

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January 1st – the first game

With the beginning of the new year 2008 the first gameday of the provincials had come. Because we were playing at 7.30 pm the first problem coming up for us was the fact that we should stay focused and most of all completly awake for the whole day. With the help of great tv shows like south park and family guy and some good rounds of texas hold’em we managed this hurdle pretty well.

Our enemy for the first game was the Wakefield rink. With more than 12 years of curling expierience they went trough the qualification for the provincials undefeated and were therefore the favourite team to win the title. We for ourselves went into the fight with nothing to loose.

Within the first three ends they literrally overran us. After just three ends the score was 7:0 against us. We made an attempt to catch up but had in the end no chance and had to give up after 8 ends. We looked at this game as a wake up call and a motivation for more sucsessful games to come.

 

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January 2nd – two giants…

With just six hours of sleep we went into the early draw against Bryan Kedziora and his team, who went to nationals representing BC the year before. As we still had the game from the day before in mind we knew that we would have to play way better tho have a shot against Kedziora.

They hit us hard in the first end with a score of three points. After a clean played second end we blanked the end to take the advantage of the last rock with us in the third end. Our attempt to score two was interrupted by a suscessful double take-out by Bryan Kedziora, which gave him the chance to steal one. With a score of 4:0 against us we knew that we had to score. So we finished a well played fourth end with a draw to the button and a point for us. Kedziora scored another point in the fiftht end, which made the score 5:1 before the break. After an almost perfect played second half we tied the game in the 9th end with a two rock steal. Kedziora destroyed our hopes to win with a perfect double take out and a three rock score in the 10th end. Even though we lost the game we made clear that we were not an easy win.

After a short lunch break at Tim’s we found ourselves playing against Nelson, another team who was expected to win the title. We played one of our best performances yet so that the game was tied after 9 ends with a score of 9:9 with Nelson having hammer. We forced Darren Nelson to draw for the win. As he shot his rock a little bit too heavy I managed to sweep the rock out of the four foot circle making us the first team defeating Nelson.

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January 3rd – a dirty lost

 

Allready the first end against the Ferguson rink was a bad one. Because we had problems finding the right weight they had two rocks in the house which forced our skip Stuart Merrifield to draw. Everything looked like a draw to the button as the first rock in a whole series picked dirt from the ice and stopped in the free guard zone, giving them a two rock steal. After a blank end the same thing happend again in the third end giving them a three rock steal and a score of 5:0 against us. We managed to score two in the fourth end but weren’t able to stop them from scoring two in the fitht end. The game turned out as a disaster with many picks and badluck – an unneeded lost.

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January 4th – The disaster continues…

 

Our next opposition team’s name was Calder from Prince George. We went into the game with a good motivation and gave them a tight first half of the game. After they scored 3 in the fifht end because of another rock which picked dirt, the second half of the game begun with the score 4:2 for Calder. Unfortunately we couldn’t manage to keep our game up and made more and more miss shots which cost us the win and the chance for the ticket to the nationals…

The game was finished at four o’clock which gave us the time to change into shirt and ty and get ready for the banquet. Because we played again at eight o’clock we were unfortunately not allowed to eat anything but a little bit of salad at the banquet – too bad…

Back on the ice we played our best against Durand and had a pretty easy game. We never gave up our lead and won in the end 7:4. After the game our coach wondered why we were so hungry . Anyways we went to Tim’s and had all a large meal before we went to bed.^^

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January 5th – Last day of the round robin – Last day for us…

At nine o’clock in the morning we finally met our friends from the Cave rink on the ice again. We were all in a good mood for a nice game. Maybe it was because the Cave rink ate a big breakfast and we didn’t or because they went to bed earlier than we did that they built up a huge lead of 6:1 in the first five ends of the game. Anyways we got back on track in the second half of the game and caught up to 7:6 in the 9th end. Cave was forced to draw on the button to take the win home. With a nice sweeping effort of the team they won in the end 8:6. After all it was a close and definitly enjoyable game.

This was the end of the Provincial Championchip 2008 for us. As the first foreigner who ever competed in a Canadian Provincial Championchip I had a great time and will never forget this week. Who knows, maybe I’ll meet on or another team again in international events in the future.

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