This weekend was the club spiel at Triangle Curling Club, an internal championship of sorts. This year, the rules required more experienced players to pair with less experienced players in an over-under format. Just like last year I somehow missed the signup email, was late to get on the list of people looking for a team, mentally wrote off the idea of even participating, was contacted right before the event to form a team with the last people left on the list, and then played skip since I was the only one who had played the position before. For the second year in a row, I was the least experienced skip on the least experienced team (we were all “unders” and I didn’t even meet two of my three teammates until just before our first game).

Objectively, things went better than a pundit might have predicted. In our first game on Friday, we were overmatched yet led after four ends before the wheels fell off. In our second game, on Saturday morning, we gave up five in the first end and it was over before it ever got started. This team wasn’t capable of making a big comeback. The third game was the best for my front end players and we steadily built a big lead. Then the same dynamic that I wrote about a few weeks ago played out and I very nearly found a way to choke the game away. My last shot was just good enough, though, and we held on. That surprise win meant that we played a third game on Saturday night. That was a bridge too far for us and I was left trying to play hero shots in almost every end. They didn’t come off and we were soundly beaten, ending our journey.

After our fourth and final game, I helped move some tables and chairs back inside to help close down for the night. One of the organizers of the event and someone I’ve played under during multiple seasons was also moving the tables and leveled with me about my behavior towards my teammates. I had let my frustration show too much and the criticism was merited. They are new curlers and were just trying to enjoy themselves; I enjoy competing and can be very hard on myself when I don’t execute as I intend. They didn’t always understand what I was asking them to do or why I was asking them to do it, resulting in more than one confused situation that led to bad outcomes. I cannot fairly blame the losses on these mishaps as I missed shots that I know I can make, but they didn’t help. I don’t expect that they would ever want to play under me again after this weekend, and that is an area where I’ve got to improve.

After a day off, I returned for my normal Monday league. I focused on staying calm above all else and proceeded to have the best game I’ve ever played both in terms of accuracy and weight control. I’m not entirely sure what to make of that, but it’s hard to argue with results.