Not a ton happened in the past week, so I’m going to return to the prior week for this week’s post. In addition to having family visiting, it was also the club spiel at the Triangle Curling Club. This is an intra-club tournament and something of a club championship, albeit with a slightly different format than a true club championship would have. This was my third year participating. Each year, I’ve played with people I’d never met before. My first two years, though, this was by happenstance of being on what I call the orphan team as my team was made up of the last people on the signup list who were still looking for teammates. That is hardly the way to build a competitive team. This year, the organizers were much more thoughtful about that aspect of the process and made it such that everyone entered as an individual or couple so that every team would be a mixed up bunch. Not only did this make for a more balanced field as the rosters were hand chosen by the organizers based on experience, but it saved me from having to scramble at the end to find a team. It also achieved the stated goal, which was to make it less intimidating for newer members to sign up to participate.

My team consisted of a brand new curler at lead, me at vice, and two of the most experienced curlers in the club as second and skip. They also happen to be married and the grandparents of one of the children I interact with when I volunteer at church. I found out about that last part during the weekend. Our first game was on Friday afternoon. This was the game when I had a cheering section of visiting family, at least for the first half of the game until the children got restive and everyone headed back to their hotel. They said they had a good time, and I think the adults did. I’m not sure the kids really understood much, though, but I enjoyed them being there and seeing them through the glass anyway.

After we missed a few shots in our second game, my team fell into the C bracket. It is not intuitive (other than everyone starting in the A bracket), but the D bracket is really what determines who finishes third. The B bracket is made up of those who lost their first games, but some of them fall into the C bracket also. While AI might be involved now, the complexity of these things still gives some indication of the sorts of people who tend to be curlers. Our second game on Saturday was a comfortable victory and then I went home to rest for the potential slog ahead. And by a slog I mean we ended up playing three games on Sunday, the second and third of which were a double header in the afternoon and evening. I’m not going to complain about reaching a final and playing six games in the tournament, but I didn’t execute in that final game. Almost no one else on either team did either, and that made for an anticlimactic end to the weekend. I expect that part of the format will be changed next year as it affected more than one of the finals. I’ve also not performed as well in my couple of outings since the club spiel. Next week is a bye week, though, so I’ll be refreshed for the last few weeks of the season before the humidity comes.