Bonus Blog: Free tickets for the Grand Slam!!!

Hello loyal readers -

Due to the enormous popularity and notoriety of my blog - I have been offered a pair of passes for next week's Grand Slam in Sault Ste-Marie!
Here is a link to the event:
http://www.grandslamofcurling.com/world-cup/

The tickets come to me courtesy of the good folks at HP - who might also be throwing me a prize for a future blog contest. HP is also sponsoring Brad Gushue's team this season.

(Note - I am talking about HP the computer/printer people not the steak sauce.)

I realize driving to the Soo might be a bit of a stretch  - as I suspect most of my readers are more likely from Quebec or Eastern Ontario - but if you are interested - post a comment on my blog saying why you are the perfect person to receive free tickets - and I will arbitrarily pick a winner and get back to you ASAP.

The Grand Slams are monster events - usually featuring better curling than you will see at the Brier or Olympics -and the parties around the events are pretty good as well.

Why does my hotel room smell like a wet dog?

It was a big week in Quebec curling this week - with the Casino Lac Leamy Challenge held in Buckingham this past weekend.

Jean Michel Ménard won the spiel in dramatic fashion, stealing 2 in 8 and one in the extra end to snatch victory away from Brad Jacobs.
I was not there, but in general when I have given up steal of 2 in the last end - it was usually that my team screwed up as opposed to the other team making brilliant shots. But wow - pretty impressive comeback nonetheless.

For those keeping track - JM is on fire.
They are hotter than the first sip of Tim Horton's coffee that scalds you and leaves you with that pasty dead skin on your tongue and pallet all day.
They are hotter than the Women of Curling Calendar. (I think - I am eagerly waiting for mine to come by mail - side note - I hope the calendar comes in a discreet brown paper packaging - don't want the mailman knowing that I order curling porn).
They are arguably the hottest team in Canada right now.

***

How did we do? Lost the C-qualifier after playing some pretty good curling.
For those who do not know - losing the C-qualifier is the shittiest game to lose in curling (apart from a provincial final). The C-qualifier is the last game before you make money, which means you spent as much time as possible in hotels and out of town without winning anything. We lost to Rob Rumfeldt, one of the hotter teams in Ontario this season.

***

Speaking of hotels...we stayed at the luxurious Hotel du Parc in Buckingham. I believe we were the only customers of the hotel not driving an 18-wheeler.
The exquisite odour as we entered our rooms was reminiscent of wet dog. I am thinking that a wet dog might have in fact been part of the cleaning staff.
There was a $20 deposit in order to get a TV remote - but as an added feature our remote actually changed the channels in the other rooms of the hotel as well.
But it was cheap.
So for those of you who think the life of a tour curler is all swimming pools and luxury hotels - THINK AGAIN!!! (Although I am guessing not a lot of people thought that in the first place)
Here is our room:

Oh well, it will make us appreciate the Manoir Richelieu even more.

***

Speaking of hot teams...Mike McEwen won in Winnipeg this week, making him the new #1 ranked team in the world, unseating Kevin Martin who has been in the #1 position for as long as I can remember.
I am waiting to hear if Mike and team will be back in Charlevoix to defend their title again this year...

***

We received our draw for the SunLife Classic in Brantford Ontario in November.
We start against none other than K-Mart himself, the illustrious Olympic gold-medallist Kevin Martin. The field at this spiel is ridiculous, with most of the top 10 teams in Canada in attendance. Should be a blast.
Hopefully we can start off well in a game surely to be billed by organizers as "the Battle of the Baldies". My only goal is to get a shout-out from TheFakeKevinMartin on Twitter.

BATTLE OF THE BALDIES:

                                                                        VS

                                                 NOVEMBER 18 - Brant Curling Club

***
The women's final in Gatineau was also eventful, with MF Larouche losing to Jenn Hanna. Again, I was not there, but Hanna took 3 in 7 and stole 8 for the win. Ouch.
Without seeing the game, I am guessing that team Larouche (along with Brad Jacobs) will be practicing peels this week...

***
Next week I will talk about the upcoming Circuit Provincial Finals - played at my home club of Glenmore Nov 10-13.

Chickens, Virgins and Curling Porn

What have I done to incur the wrath of the curling gods?
We lost out in the C-semis at the Mac Ice, tantalizingly close to qualifying, as my final draw to win in an extra end mysteriously picked up some piece of crap and spun haphazardly into the guard (despite the fact that my front end was sweeping it at the time).
Argh. (as I write this, I am flipping the bird to the curling gods).

I think my team needs to perform a ritual sacrifice of a live chicken or a virgin (although virgins are hard to find in a curling club), in order to earn the favour of those Gods of Curling that decide the fate of mere mortals.
The sad fact about curling is - that as much as we practice, prepare and perform, sometimes you lose anyway. And often in a seemingly unjust manner. I guess this is true in life as well as in curling.

On the bright side, we are curling pretty well. Results will come. I like to think that over the course of a season - good luck and bad luck always tend to even out.

***
The actual tournament was won by JM Menard. A good result for those guys - who are looking strong and determined so far this year.
Not a lot of strong performances from other Quebec teams - apart from Ferland and Kim Mastine who managed to make some money in Ottawa as well.

***
As promised, the draw for the weekend was horrible, we often had ridiculous layoffs between games. In the end, we played 5 games in 4 days, and had massive amounts of time to kill off in Ottawa. I keep swearing that I will not go back to this tournament, but the money is good, the competition is good and the ice is good, which is why it always seems to draw the top teams from Quebec and Ottawa despite the draw.

***
Next weekend is the casino Lac Leamy Challenge cashspiel in Gatineau, arguably the best and biggest event East of Ontario. Some notables will be there: Gushue, Matchett, Menard and all of the big Quebec, Ottawa and Maritime teams.
Should be a fun weekend. Dany Beaulieu and friends have done a great job building a top-notch spiel in a short period of time.

Draw and results are at:
http://www.challengecasinolacleamy.com/

***
The 2012 Women of curling calendar is out (  http://www.womenofcurlingcalendar.com/ ). This is a fundraising calendar that features relatively naked curling babes set in seductive yet tasteful poses.
I have not seen the content yet, but the cover features the exquisite Eve Muirhead of Scotland posed seductively in a tartan skirt, with a curling broom, golf clubs and - wait for it - a set of bagpipes.

(I am thinking the calendar will surely inspire some to play their pipes as well,  if you know what I mean.)

Definitely a must for those of you with a fetish for all things Scottish  - all that's missing from the pic is a bottle of single malt scotch, a big Haggis and some sheep.
Seriously, the calendar is for a good cause (which makes you  feel slightly less guilty about ordering curling porn for $30).

***

By the way - Dear Curling Gods: 
I sincerely apologize for my flippant remarks earlier - they were a joke! - and I sincerely hope it does not influence You to allocate any more bad luck in our direction.
I am currently searching on-line for a live chicken - and inquiring as to the sexual experience of people at our curling club in order to perform the necessary sacrifices to pay homage to You.
Thanks for your continued support!

Discount Viagra and Ottawa Tourist Attractions

Argh. My e-mail account was hacked today...My Yahoo sent my entire distribution list a link to get discount Viagra and Cialis, including most of my work colleagues, golf buddies and casual acquaintances.
Awesome.

I am attributing this e-mail intrusion to curling - as I am guessing the hackers scanned my PC and found the phrase "Hurry Hard" a few too many times, and figured I must be selling Viagra.

***

Not much curling to speak of yet...curling clubs around Montreal are opening their doors for open houses.
There was a spiel in 3-Rivieres, won by Phil Lemay who is having a hot start to his season.

***


Coming up on the Thanksgiving long weekend is the Mac Ice bonspiel at the RCMP club in Ottawa. It is the first real test for most of the Quebec and Ottawa competitive teams, as the field includes the usual regulars.
All of Quebec's top rated men's and women's teams will be there, including Ménard, Ferland, Lemay, Hemmings (or whoever fills in for Guy and his ailing back), Westphal, Desjardins and Larouche and  Mastine on the women's side. We will be there as well.

Here is a link to the draw:
http://classic.capitalcurling.com/

This spiel is well known for its awful draws and unusual times; and this year is no exception. The spiel runs from Wednesday to Monday, despite having only 20 men's teams in the Elite section and a dozen women's teams. There are some ridiculous delays between games; you very often find yourself with a day off (or even more) in the middle of the spiel.

So I will likely be visiting Ottawa tourist attractions this weekend; I wonder if I can convince the boys to go visit Parliament! Or 24 Sussex! Or some museums! Maybe we can have a Beavertail along the Rideau canal.

Ah - who am I kidding - we will end up in a bar.

Either way, I promise some pictures for next week's blog.

***

Speaking of Ottawa - Golf Now (a travel show on the Golf Channel) just did a show on golf in Ottawa, and had a 3 minute segment with Craig Savill (lead on Glen Howard's Uberteam) teaching the foxy blond host how to curl. She is a far better golfer than curler, but she gets an A for Effort.

***

For the non-curling readers of this blog (and there actually are surprisingly quite a few of you, even excluding my mother):
Now is a good time to try curling, if you are so inclined.
Curling clubs are holding open houses, and are very accommodating to beginners wishing to try the sport. If you are looking to try - drop me a line I can point you in the right direction.

In the meantime: here are some tips for taking your non-curling friends out on the ice for their first time:

1. Make sure to tell them to never step on the ice with your slider foot first.
2. Make sure there is alcohol waiting when they get off the ice
3. If you are teaching some obnoxious doofus who insists on making fun of curling as you teach them (with such witty comments as "usually I get my wife to do the sweeping at home haha"), make sure to tell them they need to wear 2 sliders, one on each foot; "just like the pros".
4. Get them to follow a rock and yell at the sweepers at least once. And get somebody to yell at them.
5. E-mail them a cool curling clip before they try: like this one featuring Johnny "the Hammer" Chow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMZWu9xzlA4
On Purpose!
6. For the love of God - tell them not to wear tight jeans.
7. Make sure you tell them one story about curling that involves a great curling party or a curling club sex scandal - anything to reinforce the idea that curling is not for geeks.

Karaoke and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Random Rant:

Curling? WTF? It’s 25 degrees out and beautiful. Why am I spending weekends in curling clubs instead of on a golf course? Or camping with my kids? Or drinking beer on a terrace?

Curling in September just seems wrong. All competitive teams these days are looking to get a jump on the season, searching for an edge – and trying to accumulate CTRS points – so you pretty much have to start in September. But it just seems wrong to me.  I thought curling was supposed to be a winter sport.

I walked into a curling club Friday wearing flip flops and shorts, and put on my sweater, gloves and jacket and went and stood on ice for 2 hours. It’s just WRONG.

So here is my thought for competitive curling: We need to move everything later. Start curling in mid-October – but finish in March-April. I look at my last season, my competitive season ended in January. JANUARY! For most teams, competitive curling ends in February, and for a select few – March. Last time I checked, winter officially lasts until March 22.

Furthermore, April is a boring month; there is no golf – the weather is crappy – and the curling clubs are still open - why not more competitive curling then, instead of now?

Moosehead Fall Open

Having said all this, I had a pretty good weekend at the Moosehead Fall Open at the RCMP club in Ottawa.  This is very much a tune-up spiel, with only a few big teams deciding to play.

It was my first spiel with the new team – and it went pretty well. We had a good weekend, lost in the ¼ finals against Brian Cochrane, an ageless guy with immovable hair from Ottawa who always seems to find a way to win. We knocked out pretty much every other Quebec team that played in the tournament – except Phil Lemay who was in the finals.

In Quebec curling news, Guy Hemmings was supposed to be playing with Brier rep Francois Gagné this year, but is out indefinitely with a bad back. Guy was apparently moving furniture or something, although I find it hard to believe that Guy actually tried to move something heavy. My theory is its carpal tunnel syndrome from too much video game action. Seriously - we wish him a speedy recovery, whatever his injury.

Brockville

I was in Brockville 2 weekends ago at the Shorty Jenkins spiel, and had a great time. Played 27 holes of golf, went 3-2 on the curling ice, and came 30cm or so away from qualifying for the ¼ finals. Damn shootouts. They are worse than penalty shots in soccer.

We played against John Epping and his new team, who eventually won the spiel over Glenn Howard and Brad Gushue.  If you have not heard of Epping before – you probably will. Bold prediction – they will be the next big team to come out of Eastern Canada. These guys are good.

We also saw Glenn Howard's new team - with Wayne Middaugh playing 3rd instead of Richard Hart. Of course they will be good, but they just seem to be a little bit harder to cheer for now.

Only complaint about Brockville: Saturday night Karaoke. Didn’t Karaoke die 5 or 10 years ago? If it didn’t, it should have. It always ends up being the same few microphone hogs belting out tunes that you normally don’t want to hear, and it always seems to last about 2 hours too long. I love Earl Morris – but just not as a singer (although admittedly he was pretty good).

Let’s leave the singing to the professionals, people.

It was a tragic party killer – (although I was still there at 1:30AM).

***

Next on the schedule for most big teams is the Mac Ice Classic in Ottawa at the RCMP curling club on Thanksgiving weekend - with pretty much every big Quebec men's and women's team in action.

Pink Cowboy Boots

Let's get it started.

I will be heading up to the Shorty Jenkins Invitational this weekend to kick off my 2011-2012 curling season.

For those of you who do not know who Shorty Jenkins is:
He is the patriarch of modern ice-making in curling. He figured out how to make ice that was fast and that curled, and was thus revered by curlers around the world.
He did the ice for the Brier and TSN Skins Games - and countless events.
I think his masterful technique relied heavily on a piece of sandpaper - but it does not change the fact that he did it better than anyone, and did it before anyone else knew how.
He also likes to wear Pink Cowboy hats and boots, (Insert Brokeback Mountain joke here) - and wore pink well before it was fashionable for guys to do so.

 Sadly, Shorty has gotten old, and is no longer actively making ice. But he is the uncontested hall of fame ice king in Canada (and was even made into a great Tim Horton's commercial in the 90s - sorry I could not find a link!)

The Shorty bonspiel in Brockville is a great event - solid competitive curling mixed with golf at a quaint little country club.
Gushue and Howard will be there, and are the heavy favorites, as well as defending champion Jean-Michel Ménard who is in our group in the round robin.

The Shorty is kind of a pre-season event - it serves to help switch over your thinking from golf, or camping, or biking - or whatever else you do all summer to curling. Even the the most experienced competitive curlers, there is an adjustment period - where we struggle to get back to the mental discipline required to stay focused for 2+ hours of curling.

***
So curling season starts now. I am excited - but for some reason I found myself asking "why?". Why do I try to curl competitively? Why do I love it? Why do I dedicate so much time, money and mental effort to a sport that is often the subject of ridicule? Why keep pushing to excel at a sport where my success or failure will likely never mean much to anyone but me and my teammates, and maybe those close to me?

I am sure many of you will say - "you do it for fun." You do it to get away on weekends - and drink and be with friends.

But this is increasingly not the case.

First of all - I really can't drink like I used to. I have become a lightweight when it comes to alcohol consumption. A few Rum and Cokes and I am done. And as I age - hangovers seem to get worse. (I barely survived a poker night with friends recently after unwisely bringing a bottle of Jack along. ugh.).

Second of all - as sappy as it sounds - when I am away curling I miss my family. Curling takes me out of town, often in mediocre hotel rooms  - away from my kids - who are remarkably cute.

So, if not to get away and have fun, then why?

The answer is that to be good at curling makes you better at life.

Competitive curling, like golf (another addictive pastime) gives us the opportunity to make ourselves better. Winning at curling usually involves confronting the inner demons that can haunt us all; self-doubt, fear. To win as a competitive level - your need to conquer these. You need to fight the voice that says you can't do it. You need to be confident - you need to know that you can make any shot. You need to not be intimidated.
You also learn the value of practice and preparation.
Not surprisingly - confidence, self-assurance and practice are the keys to success in a lot of other endeavours as well.

I think this is why I love curling, and keep curling competitively despite a number of reasons to quit.

Anyway - please excuse the self-reflective nature of this blog. I will get back to being a farcical curling reporter next week.

***

On another topic, Prince Jaber of the Ivory Coast has not yet answered my request for sponsorship for team Fournier.  Therefore - will need to find another source on funding for the season.

***

Next week:  Psychic Predictions for the upcoming season that will amaze you!


Link to the Shorty Jenkins web page - for those of you wishing to follow along on-line (my mom):

http://www.brockvillecountryclub.com/shorty/index.htm

Team Fournier seeking sponsorship from Ivory Coast Royalty

Dear Prince Jaffer Nabaroo of the Ivory Coast;

I am writing in reply to your e-mail dated July 17^th, asking for my banking information to help repatriate funds frozen in your country’s central bank. My apologies for the late reply, but for some reason your urgent request mistakenly found its way into my spam folder. I will add you to my contacts list to ensure no further delays in our communications.

I will gladly provide you with my banking information and credit card numbers in a subsequent e-mail, so as to facilitate the transfer of the $8,000,000 of funds.

In the meantime, I would like to discuss an exciting opportunity with you; the opportunity to sponsor my competitive men’s curling team.

While I am sure the Ivory Coast has little access to curling, I am quite confident that you would find this sport appealing.  There would be numerous advantages to sponsorship for you:

- My team would be an excellent vehicle for transferring funds into the Canadian banking system. We have a team account (currently with a zero balance).

- Having your name on our team jackets would surely help create a positive image for you in Canada, facilitating your eventual immigration here at some point in the future.

- We would be happy to represent the Ivory Coast in the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi. This would help raise the international profile of your country. We would even let you be our 5^th man; you could be the next Prince Albert of Monaco!  

We are only seeking $10,000 in sponsorship, clearly only a drop in the bucket for a man of your wealth and influence, and only a fraction of the $8,000,000 you have in waiting.

 I look forward to a positive reply to this e-mail. To facilitate the transaction, could you please send me YOUR banking information and address, so as to expedite the transfer of funds.

Thanks,

Mike F, skip of Team Fournier!