Good curling

Today marked the end of our 3rd curling season. Although the end of curling signifies long runs around Hayward Lake, Grouse Grind, the occasional golf game, it also ends Bad Girl Tuesday. We became known as the Bad Girls not because we are bad (well, ok sometimes we curl rather badly) but because of our team hoodies that we wore to our first tournament. We were looking for something a little different, Liz (skip) found some tealish/green/blue hoodies with bedazzled skulls and the words bad girl written across the chest…they were cute, available in our sizes and the price was right, the rest is history. We bring out our team hoodies for special occasions, along with the many matching wigs, hats, earplugs, scarves, mittens and tanks that we have acquired over the years.

Bad Girl Tuesday is an all day affair, we usually start around 8:30am and finish somewhere around 1:00pm. After we drop the kids off at school we meet for a quick coffee (strategy talk…whatever) and then head to the curling rink for our weekly match. We play in the beginner ladies league and in addition to being known as the BG’s we are also know as the young team (some of these ladies have been playing for 40, 50, maybe even 60 years) and even though this league is billed as non-competitive, they LOVE to kick our asses!

Many rituals take place in the locker room, but since my swearing off sambuca late last year, I am unable to take part in the team shot (yes, we know it is only 9:30am) but do take part in the team cheer. From the locker room to the ice and then the coin toss, this is my big job as third or vice skip as I have taken to calling myself. Conny (second) teases me, because I always lose, which means that they get last rock (the hammer) but we do pick the colour, which is equally important to us, (we go with red, although Conny threw a blue one today, thank goodness that I didn’t stop it mid ice like I did the last time someone threw the wrong colour).

For a group of athletic “young” women, our record isn’t fabulous, if our one tie was a win, we would have won as many games as we lost (we did win today, but it didn’t count because it was a fun game). We generally opt for plan b plays (which are fluky shots that work to our advantage or at least work), and when Liz steps into the hack, we expect her to clean up all of our mistakes with a tipy-tap or rumpy-pumpy, she is a great curler and total rockstar on the ice, she also proved today that she can sweep. The games do seem to go on a little long, especially for Shannon (lead, and called the short one by one of the lovely ladies from season 1) who openly admits that she is done after 4 ends. By the time that buzzer goes for our final end, we all famished and have decided were lunch will take place and we tear out of the parking lot to get our usual table before it gets too busy.

Curling gained huge popularity during the Olympics, but we knew that it was something special before Cheryl Bernard and Kevin Martin (and our personal favourite, the very handsome John Morris) were household names. It does require perfect throwing weight, huge strategy, athleticism, and it is the only sport where you can scream “Hurry…harrrrrrrd…yes…yes…yes…yes” oh, and we do!