Monday night open league last night. Played with our travel Toronto team. One word to describe the night: Odd.
Let me start by saying the opposing skip and vice are two VERY good players. Probably THE best guys I have ever played against, and among the top at our club. The combination of the two together makes them even better. They communicate very well with each other, and compliment each others abilities really well. Their 2nd played well too. That being said, we TIED. 7-7 in 7 ends.
As a team we struggled a bit. Everyone missed some key shots every once in a while. It opened with 1 point for them in the 1st end, 3 points for us in the 2nd end, then 5 points for them in the 3rd end. At this point I thought: oh boy, here we go. Let the ass-whooping begin. I shrugged it off, and decided even if the whooping was coming, I was going to have as much fun as possible. Well, after that 5 point end, we scratched and clawed for every point. We weren't giving up. We got 2 in the 4th end, then held them to one in the 5th end, and then we got 1 point in each of the 6th and 7th end. TIED. Which is better than I thought I would be at that point. Our vice (throwing the last rocks) had some SA-WEET draws to get our last few points. It was definitely a fun game. And I'm just glad that we didn't get slaughtered. At the end of the 7th end there was some debate about whether to continue on with the 8th end. It was getting a little late. And it appeared everyone was on board for another end, except for one person. We were setting up for the 8th, and that person backed out at the last second, so we shook and took the tie. When I say the night was odd, it is because of how it ended. I think everyone feels iffy about ties, and since there was just one end left to play, most people were like what the heck - lets do it. Trust me, I have no dillusions about how that last end would have went. There is a VERY strong possibility we would have lost. But to not even get the chance to see how it would turn out, thats the part of a tie no one really likes. Ah well, it's a learning experience I guess.
Personally, I played sort of OK... The first two ends, I was on track to be throwing 90%. I had some killer shots. Then I slowly came off the rails, and got lazy with some of my shots. I've noticed I may have an issue with keeping my energy level up during the whole game. How do I remedy this? I'm not sure. My whole life I've never really been a fan of playing competitive sports, and I don't know how to get into that 'mode' a successful player of any sport gets into. What's funny to me, is I've never really thought I was a competitive person. Well, curling has cured me of that. I want to compete at a higher level each time.
Also, I am happy to report that when I mentally prepared my shots and executed with the CurlTech method in mind, I was pretty good. And when I came off the rails, it was also when I wasn't thinking properly about my shots. I'm going to have to look into to being mentally tough along with being phyically tough as well. *sigh* Again, learning experience!
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