Last Rock

We're three weeks into the curling season. 

I've curled 6 times so far. 

I've won 5 games and lost one. 

The ones we won were won well. Some were hard-fought down to the last rock. Some we dominated from the first rock. 

When we win, it's tradition for the winning team to buy the first drink for the opposing team. So I've been buying a lot of drinks. 

On Friday, we were scheduled to play against our good friends Chris, Janice, Benny and Leslie. We decided to switch it up a bit and went with a good ol'fashioned girls against the boys game. 

The boys team: Chris (lead), Benny (second), Ian (third) and Doug (skip). 

The girls team: Cathy (lead), Leslie (second), me (third) and Janice (skip). 

The experience teeter-totter was significantly heavier on the boys side but we made up in ambition what we lacked in skill and experience. 

So we hoped anyway. 

We play a six end game on Friday nights. 

By the end of the fifth end we were losing 13 to 0. 

You'd never have know though because the scoreboard said we were tied 5-5. The boys were kind enough not to broadcast to the world the real score. 

The game was fun but it got really interesting when we were down to the last rock in the last end. The boys were poised to take 3 or 4 more points. The only possible way we could stop them was for Janice to throw a hail mary kinda shot. She had to squeeze her rock through two of their rocks and hit one of ours on a perfect angle to send it through two more of their rocks and settle nicely on the button for us to get one point. 

It's not like we had a chance of winning so we decided to give it a whirl. The experienced boys didn't even think it was possible but they had enough sense to stand back and let us try. 

Janice got into the hack. I held the broom for her to aim at. Leslie and Cathy were ready to sweep on command. 

Janice threw. I dropped down to get a view of the line. It had to hit perfectly and with the perfect weight. I help up my hand to let them know not to sweep. I watched the rock. It began to slow just a hair and I yelled "Yes!! Hard! Now!!". 

They swept. Hard. 

Janice's rock squeezed through the boys' rocks and hit ours at the perfect spot. That rock then squeezed through two more of the boys' rocks and settled absolutely exactly where we wanted it to. 

We lost 13:1. 

But you'd never guess from the way we screamed and celebrated and the fact that it was the only shot any of us talked about as we shared drinks and food.

It was the kind of shot you see on television. Not at our little curling club on a Friday night. So we enjoyed our free drinks and milked the memory of that heroic shot for all its worth.