Le Skipper a Drawé en Tabarnouche ce soir!

Best Night So Far at the Scotties

Thursday night provided some great shot-making, some reason to cheer for the hometown fans and some atmosphere in the Maurice Richard Arena.

Val Sweeting and Chelsea Carey played a very entertaining game that came down to last shot. Carey missed a runback by a hair to give Sweeting the win, but left the fans puzzled as to why she did not play an easier, 4-foot double runback on the other side of the sheet. Time was a huge factor in this one; with both teams making some strange last-end calls likely the result of only having less than a minute left of time on the clock before throwing their last rocks. There were a lot of rocks in play and many trick angles to consider in very little time.

Quebec provided the week’s largest crowd with something to cheer about. They beat Ontario in a well played game to finish off the week at 2-9, tied for last place with terminally cute Sarah Koltun from the Yukon. (I am told that Yukon will play the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and PEI (?) in the relegation round last year. From what I understand, Quebec has avoided the relegation round because they are using the average record over the last 3 years to determine the teams that are relegated. Phew!) It was fun to see them playing well in front of an appreciative crowd.

This was by far the biggest and most enthusiastic crowd of the week (over 2500 according to the attendence numbers). Curling Quebec held a past champions night to honor all the players that ever represented Quebec at the Scotties. Great Idea! They all wore their blue jackets, and sat together in the crowd. It also made for a good crowd afterwards in the HeartStop Lounge. I think they should also have invited Quebec’s past Brier participants. It is rather unlikely that Quebec will ever host a Brier again, so it would have been nice to get everyone out for the party!

Playoff Picture Set

Playoffs start tonight, with the Homanator taking on Chelsea Carey in the 1-2 game, while Sweeting takes on Lawton in the 3-4 game tomorrow afternoon. Go and watch! The 4 teams that have qualified have been making great shots all week and putting up some monstrously high stats. If we can duplicate the atmosphere from Thursday night for the playoffs, we should be in for a great weekend.

Curling en Francais SVP

I was at home this morning pretending to work this morning, while watching the game on RDS2 with Marie-France Larouche replacing Guy in the commentator’s booth. She did a great job, but I had to laugh every time she went to say “hack weight”, and instead corrected herself with the proper French terminology: “pésenteur  bloc de départ”, and had to say “pierre avec effet extérieur” instead of outturn. I curl with three rather unilingual French guys, and we have never used any of the terms she uses.  I am all for making the sport more accessible to the Francophone community in Quebec, but I think it might be time for the Office de la Langue Française to accept “Hack” and “Drawer” (as in “le skip  a drawé en tabarnouche ce soir”) as legitimate French terms. While they are at it, they can ad “Birdie” instead of “oiselet” when covering golf!!!

On a Personal Note:

I finished 2^nd in the Karaoke contest at the HeartStop with an alcohol-fueled,  stirring rendition of “Burning Love” by Elvis. For my effort I won $50, some hair-care products (that should come in handy) and a bag full of Scotties paper products; such as toilet paper, tissue and Scott towels. Here is Quebec lead Pam Nugent with my trophy! I am told there is a video of the song, which mercifully has not been put on-line anywhere. Woo hoo!