Greetings From Oakville, Ontario

My husband is ready to get started!

  Hello from the True North! Hot Shots Curling Camp has wrapped up and I am wiped out. But in a good way. The organizers of the camp really gave us quite an experience. I feel fortunate that we chose to attend now; when we are still fairly new to curling, so we can absorb the tips and pointers better. As they say, you can't teach an old dog new tricks!

 I think my Thursday night Skip will be happy to hear that I found good HIT weight. And I mean, real hit weight. If I practice and work hard, I can really make it consistently good. This is HUGE for me!! I honestly didn't think I had any good hits in me.

 I'm also excited to report that I found a slight toe shift of my hack foot when I'm about to take off from the hack. Not exactly sure why I do this, but I just made a mental note to control that foot better. As the day went on, I got better and better at that. My whole delivery got a bit of an over haul. I'm VERY pleased with the changes. I feel like I can find my center of balance better. I can find more power when I need it (HUGE!!) I can find my line faster. I could go on and on and on about this...

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate!

 I was greatly encouraged by a few of the classroom sessions that we had. The ones about Team Communication and Team building were eye opening to me. I've sort of taken for granted the fact that the Husband and I have always found a team when we needed it. Now that the Thursday night team is forming again for this year, we have an opportunity to really link up and work together. Really try to build something. I think if we can do that, we won't have the bad collapse like we had in the end of the season last year. The biggest thing for me personally in all of this, is rising up to the role I play in the team. If I rise to my highest potential, that will help others in the roles they play. I'm looking forward to our first practice session!

Learning about angles from Paul Balabuck

 I know it's going to sound like I'm gushing, but seriously, the weekend was great. It all came down to the AMAZING instructors. People that not only are at the top of their games, but also are excellent at instruction and teaching the proper principles of curling. Our very first instructor on Day 1 was Jill Mouzar, a former Canadian Mixed Champion, a World Junior Silver medalist and represented Nova Scotia at the 2007 Scotties.. Her analysis of my slide and delivery was very informative to me. The one thing she did with us is break up the whole delivery process into chunks. By slowing it down and concentrating on those separate parts, you really get a better sense of what you should be doing and why you aren't doing is. Another instructor, Hugh Murphy, offered up extremely valuable advice as well. You knew he never rests on his laurels, and wants to be the best he can be. Plus he wants YOU to be the best you can be. He is the ultimate competitor and just by being around him makes you excited to play. Our Team Building and Dynamics session with Earle Morris was extremely insightful. Since he has worked with some of the top teams in Canada, he has a unique view of what it takes to build a successful team. He emphasized that a lot of the things that those elite teams struggle with are the same as what we all struggle with. Your team is a relationship that takes work! No one person should be taken for granted. If you can really work together, get on the same page, and everyone contributes, then you can only get better.

 Overall, I am totally blown away by the whole weekend. The Husband and I learned a lot. Some of what we learned can be applied to our personal curling abilities, and some can be applied to our team. Obviously, I want to get better at curling. I want to improve every year. But higher up on my wish list is that our Thursday night team be the best it can be.

 I know you probably have heard this before, but Canadians are awesome! They are some of the nicest, most genuine people you will ever meet. The people at Hot Shots are truly passionate about the sport of curling. They have such enthusiasm for the future of the sport and want to share that enthusiasm with as many people as they can.

 To wrap it up - I am dying to get this season started!! I am looking forward to using what I learned at camp, but first and foremost I want to play and have fun.

To blog or not to blog...

 Ack, It's summer - It's hot out. And to be honest with you, I haven't really thought about curling since last April.

 The husband likes to point out every week how close we are to curling camp in Oakville, Ontario. 6 weeks, 5 more weeks, 4 more weeks, etc. Camp starts August 26th and runs through August 28th.


Where's my stabilizer?

 Since I haven't really thought about curling, I'm not in any mind set yet for camp. One thing I have vaguely wondered about is: How bad will that first release out of the hack be?? Is it like riding a bike, as they say? Will it come back to me quickly? Or will I be splayed out on the ice, flopping around like a seal.

 The header of this blog currently calls me a "first year curler." When camp commences I will no longer be a first year curler. But I still will experience a lot of "Firsts." Such as, first time back after summer break. Sooooo, it should be interesting on the 26th. I'll make sure the husband takes some pictures.

 I hope you are enjoying the rest of your summer. I'll post again, maybe, as we get closer to camp.

Arena Curling

 First, let me apologize for not posting in a while. It's the off-season!! So posting may be pretty infrequent. In August it will probably pick up again, since the season will be starting for the husband and I with a trip to Curling Camp in Canada. (More on that later in the summer.)

 This post is about Arena Curling. The husband got a letter in the mail from the Evergreen Curling Club in Portland, Oregon. They are soliciting donations for their new curling club, so they can curl on dedicated curling ice. Right now, and for the past 9 years, they curl on Arena Ice. For those of you that have not seen this before, clubs can rent ice time at a local hockey arena and curl on the hockey ice. As you can imagine, this comes with a whole host of problems. Evergreens letter highlights some of these problems: rental rates are expensive and the scheduling is controlled by the arena, the ice is consistently poor quality, there is nowhere for people to meet before or after a game and socialize together, a ton of work has to go into setting everything up before a night of curling can even happen, plus many more issues.

 Evergreens letter mentions that they have decided to lease empty warehouse space and convert it to a curling club. They note that this is really the cheapest option, and through various fundraising options they hope to raise $300,000. If you want that warm and fuzzy feeling, send a donation! I'm sure they would really appreciate it.

 Receiving their letter in the mail made me think how lucky and fortunate we are in Rochester to have dedicated curling ice. I remember how excited the husband and I were when we started curling, and I remember how awesome we thought it was that we could curl almost any night of the week. If we had to curl on Arena ice - would we have that same level of excitement? It's hard to say. Would I have stuck it out and worked through some of my bad habits if I could only curl once a week and on wonky ice?? It would have been pretty hard to do it.

 So far, curling has become a big part of our lives. And it is taking us to places we have never been before. Along the way, we have met some REALLY great people. I always like to attribute this to our home ice and the opportunities it has given us to further our game.

I'm proud to call him my Skip.

 This is Chris Benway, my Skip for Thursday nights. We almost went undefeated during the last draw. If only he pulled this out during that last game...if only! haha.

 This was recorded during the Last Chance last weekend.

Last Chance Curling and Craziness 4/16/2011

Saturday was the Last Chance to Curl. It's really just a big party before and after they shut down the compressor for the summer. We had some crazy rules curling (All 16 rocks in the house, Red in left side only, Touch center line only, Delivering two rocks,etc.) then we toast the compressor. After the compressor is off, the fun begins - with skating and sliding on anything you can get your hands on. Here are a few pics.

Click here for more pictures.

Pittsburgh Rocks!!

Pictures courtesy of John Zavinski from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

                                                   My favorite pic of me. Go Steelers.    

                                                John I. and I digging in. Nice form.

    Hurry, Hurry, Hurry!!         

                                              Nick W. and I sweeping Johns rock.

Pittsburgh Curling Club      


PS: RIB pics coming soon!

Rochester International Bonspiel

 The RIB was tons of fun! We went 2-2 overall, and ended up competing in the C divison final game. We lost that, and as C runners up, we were given 50th Anniversary RCC pins. The final game was a tough one to swallow, since we were dominating early. We just couldn't hold onto the lead. The game against Machold on Saturday was rough, as you can see, but that one was against people WAY better than us and with more experience. Their skip is a National Play-Downs player!

 Sunday morning was a bright spot, since we beat the Raven team. Their skip is a very skilled player and the rest of the team was playing very well too. But we all dug deep to play real well to make up for being so far behind after the first 3 ends. I really enjoyed this game. And playing against the members of the Raven team was nice, they are real good guys.

 So, aside from some fun nights of curling coming up this week (the club shuts down for the summer this coming weekend), the husband and I are done with being 'First Year Curlers'. Kind of weird...The husband said that the RIB felt kind of like a graduation ceremony. He's not that far off. The organizer of the event made note of recognizing that we are all pretty inexperienced and still played some good games, and we got a round of applause for that. That was nice. Except like my husband said, we can't use 'First Year' as an excuse anymore!

This is how we did:

 *Disclaimer: The husband made this graphic late on Sunday night, and we both were very sore and tired, and our memorys were shot - so the ends might be a little off. But we are 99% sure it's mostly correct!! The final scores are right at least.

 At some point this week I will post pictures from the RIB.