Circuit Wrap-up, Numbers on Jackets and Super Mario!

I am just coming off another glamorous weekend of curling - this time at Glenmore for the Quebec Curling tour championships.

On the men's side - (and the seniors) - the event serves as a preview of men's provincials. The same teams will inevitable clash at provincials 2 months from now - so the Circuit serves as an advanced scouting of what provincials will look like.

It was a rather draining weekend - we somehow managed to lose the right combination of games so as to have to play 9 games between Thursday night and Sunday afternoon - before losing a tight game in the semi-finals to eventual winner JM Menard.
Today I have a sexy 2-pack-a-day smoker voice, I feel like crap , and I didn't even have to sweep anything for more than 6 feet. Imagine how bad my front end must feel.

So here are some random notes and observations from the event:

* JM Ménard has not lost a lot of games this year. They again won a tournament undefeated. They are playing very, very well and seem to be focused on becoming a top Canadian team. They will face a good test in Brantford next weekend - at the Sun Life Classic - where they will face the top teams in Canada.

* Simon Dupuis lost the final - somehow managing to sneak into the finals with some bizarre comebacks in both the 1/4 finals and semi-finals. He was down 3 playing the last end against Francois Roberge in the semis, and somehow managed to pull off an ugly victory. sadly the final was an ass-kicking - it lasted about as long as one of Simon's smoke breaks- not surprising given that it was their 10th game in the tournament! It looked like they just ran out of gas.

* Not a great weekend for Serge Reid, Team Hemmings and Robert Desjardins, all surprisingly eliminated before the playoffs. Surprise of the weekend was JF Royer from TMR - who qualified B-side before they managed to pull defeat from the jaws of victory in the 1/4 finals against Dupuis.

* On the women's side, Kim Mastine beat Laura Thomas in the finals. Surprising run by Laura. A good win for Kim who was having a rough season so far.

* In Seniors - Robbie MacLean looked kinda dominant  -winning without seemingly having a close game.

***
Speaking of seniors, they were especially grumpy this weekend. They are complaining to Curling Quebec about the fact that there are no longer money spots at Seniors Provincials...(the 12 teams at Provincials will be the 12 teams that win their respective regional qualifiers). I think they definitely have a point. I am guessing that CQ might rethink this for next season.

***

Off to Brantford Ontario this weekend for the Sun Life Classic!

Can't wait. Our 9 game curling marathon this weekend will definitely have prepared us well...still need to be a bit more consistent.

The draw is available at http://www.sunlifeclassic.com/ and actually looks pretty cool.

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Numbers on jackets.
Possibly the lamest trend in curling these days is to put numbers on curling jackets. It is actually a requirement now to curl in a Grand Slam event that your team have names AND numbers on the backs of their shirts and jackets. Not sure if the World Curling Tour thinks that this will lead to people actually confusing curlers with athletes...
But my team is jumping on the numbers bandwagon - our jackets are in the shop as we speak getting numbered.
For my countless fans - I will now be number 21, in case you were planning on having it tattooed on a body part, shaving it into the side of your head or planning on buying a Team Fournier jersey for your loved one for Christmas.


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Thanks to those of you who entered my "favorite curler for a laptop contest"...

And the winner is:

Andrew Ouellette!
Andrew is an all-around nice guy and longtime curler at Lachine Curling Club, who actually taught me how to curl on my first time on the ice - some 26 years ago.
I will get in touch with Andrew this week about claiming his prize.
Thanks again to the folks at HP for this generous giveaway.

Big thanks to those who entered. There were some interesting choices:

I especially enjoyed the Dale Ness flatulence story. Few in Quebec competitive curling have not experienced Dale's ability to change the momentum in a game by producing a think, green gaseous cloud that makes concentration and shot making impossible.
Strangely, the only person to have matched Dale's intestinal prowess over the years is a prominent competitive female curler (who shall remain nameless) - who took pride in making opposing teams suffer.

***
My moustache is only 2 weeks old - and I already want to shave it. It is getting itchy, bushy, it smells like the chili I ate yesterday and my wife no longer wants to touch me. So far I have been told that I look like a pedophile, a Nazi, Dupont et Dupont (from Tintin), a French police inspector and my personal favorite:
Super Mario if Super Mario was also bald. (although it is hard to tell if he is not really bald - he always wears a hat in the video game.)

So you need to give generously to make this hardship worthwhile!!!

To donate - follow this link:
http://ca.movember.com/mospace/1855326/

You even get a tax receipt for your generosity. its very easy - a few clicks and done!