What happens at a Bonspiel, Stays at a Bonspiel.

Especially in Las Vegas

This weekend I decided to dive into Curling outside my local club. The season for me was over, but a few people talked about a 3U (three years of experience or under) bonspiel in Las Vegas and I, lemming-like, expressed interest.  John Cullen in his book Curling Rocks! talks about the most important thing in curling is to play with people you like. Being a more introverted person who some people at the club have called “Crazy Bruce” (I’m still trying to figure out why) I really only know the folks I’ve played with.  This limits the pool of people I really know to Wednesday Mornings and two sessions of the 5U League in which I skipped (the guy who yells a lot).  Included could also be a couple of other events and being a junior assistant trainee instructor. In my mind a pretty shallow pool, but most of them I like.

The Crew from the Circle City Curling Club

There were two teams heading to Vegas and I was part of the group. Fortunately curling doesn’t require a lot of equipment the most unwieldy piece would be the broom.  I decided to invest in a “travel broom” which breaks into four parts and can fit in a carry on.  Not cheap, but since I’m ending my second full season and am looking forward to continuing, it wasn’t a bad investment.  I saw a more experienced curler wield one at the end of the year event. She complained a bit about the weight, I could barely feel a difference between my own broom. Of course, add in my new shoes and this was the first time I’d use any of this stuff on the ice and my first time on the ice at another club!

Curl Vegas is the host and the theme was fairy tales.  I was tagged as the creative one (Crazy Bruce) so I started bouncing around fairy tale based team names. I started with most esoteric things based on the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, but after blank stares as a reward for my cleverness I tried out “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo” which was altered to “Bibbidi Bobbidi Broom” to add some curling to it.  I then drew up a Fantasia Sorcerer’s Apprentice style broom carrying stones instead of buckets.  Those days studying at Disney during my first Lilly Fellowship paid off, I had contributed to the team in the only way I really know how - graphic design.

Bibbidi Bobbidi Broom on the Ice! (LtoR) Assistant Animator, The Bag Bad Wolf, The Evil Stepmother, & The Animal Friend

We got our draw schedule (guaranteed 3 draws/matches) for both our teams we would start at 1:00 on Friday.  If Bibbidi won we’d turn around and have another match at 3:30.  Back to back… having never done this I was happily oblivious. If we lost we’d head back for a 7:30 draw.  Definitely Not a Mimic the other Circle City team, win or lose, would go again at 7:30. After that I’d have to consult a crystal ball or magic mirror on the wall to know what would happen next.

As John Cullen said in Curling Rocks! most of the best curling memories happen off the ice. Where else could we end up with tales to amuse and delight than in Las Vegas?

We’re all gathered around a claw machine at the Pinball Hall of Fame Museum

I will not go into details about our first night- we were all tired trying to acclimate to the time zone.  A bit of drama with the Airbnb, dinner, and a near death experience on the way back from dinner. You know “fun”memories off the ice.

Our first day of curling went well… *spoilers* we lost both draws. That said we met some awesome curlers from around the U.S. and, while we were not victorious, both games were close at some point, so we didn’t necessarily embarrass ourselves too much. I started to think I should change my role from “Assistant Animator” to “The Huntsman” since my role seemed to be taking out a stone in some (for me at least) challenging locations.

Not Your Home Ice

Curl Vegas- four sheets each named after a card.

Besides new people, a different facility does make things a bit more interesting.  Shots that would do one thing at home acted completely differently here.  The Curl Vegas venue was great, four sheets with lots of sponsors prominently displayed on the ice.  A few interesting things to note.  We have the “T-line” drawn through each of the houses on each sheet. Curl Vegas, didn’t which made things a bit more difficult for some. Another thing was, at home, we have monitors showing a bird’s eye view of the house from the hack.  I’ve gotten used to seeing how the stones are around the house before throwing a stone.  I didn’t realize how much of a crutch this has been for me until I didn’t have it today. Finally the ice itself was different.  We found out later the dehumidifier had gone out.  You would think with all the talk of “dry heat” humidity wouldn’t be an issue.  You would be wrong.  Our presence on the ice created frost which would cause the stone to slow down or almost stop at inopportune moments.  It was a problem for everyone so just a bit we had to work around when calling shots and sweeping.

The Bonspiel also had decided on some  interesting rule changes.

• The “Frog Line” - if you burn a stone or it doesn’t make it past the hog line you need to pay the frog.  $1 goes into a frog cookie jar along with a ticket with your name on it. At the end of the days festivities a name would be drawn from the frog and they would win the entire pot! The issue with the dehumidifier caused a lot of people to “Frog” shots. The first day’s pot was $60.

• The Double Take Out Dragon - if a team gets a double take out (removes two opposing stones with one stone) they gain possession of the dragon. Whichever team is in possession of the dragon at the end of the round gets a round of drinks on the house!

• The Ogre Round - Ogres have layers, like an onion. During this round some rules are different. First if you win the double take out dragon - it goes to the other team.  Finally in an epic reversal- the losing team buys the drinks! Also, the “no tick” rule is in play.

Cecil sitting with the Double Take Out Dragon during our second draw (The Ogre Round)

They also asked us to used glass markers to decorate the windows where people watched the sheets from the warm room.  Ummm… I like to draw, some say I’m not too bad at it.  I had some fun which lead to my friends informing me the awe others had for the silly doodles I had done.  This magical ability of mine included writing team names backwards so they could be seen from the sheet side of the window. 🙄 yup, it’s a silly skill I happen to have. I was told at the end of the first day that it awed and amazed many teams. Sadly, I may have intimated people. I even heard hushed whispers about how “some guy was an animator.” 🙄

The Results

• Draw 1 lost to Four Foot Farquaads

• Draw 2 lost to A Draw is a Wish Your Heart Makes

• Draw 3 lost to Ogre the Hog Line

So that’s three losses for my team.  Some close ends, some great shots (some of them even mine) but such is curling.

As for the other Circle City Curling Club team - Definitely Not a Mimic

• Draw 1 win over Ogre the Hog Line

• Draw 2 lost to Game of Stones

• Draw 3 lost to Four Foot Farquaads

This meant that both teams did not advance to play on Sunday. Which since we were all pretty tired was kind of a silver lining.  Not that we didn’t want to win, but…

Take Aways

I learned a lot this first Bonspiel away from home.  Most importantly John Cullen was right about playing with people you like. It was fun.  Frustrating at times, but fun.

I thought I had figured this out after my very first attempt at a bonspiel, obviously I didn’t- don’t try new things out in a competitive environment.  Go with what you are comfortable with.  For this event I had new shoes and a new broom.  While in the end (pun not intended) I did like using both, there were some subtle differences in how each tool worked.  With the shoes - the slider (Teflon) is positioned just a bit differently so it felt funny when I started my delivery.  As for my new travel broom? I really liked it.  It served the purpose by collapsing into an easy to manage size for travel.  The issue I had was the head was a lot looser so being Vice giving my skip a good target (the broom head) was a bit of a challenge. Just something I need to figure out and during a bonspiel wasn’t the time or place. I did not try to use my new broom as a stabilizer.

Not only play with people you like, but also play with people you know.  I actually complained on our club survey about this. I said that if the purpose of a league is to get to meet new people then teams for each session should be randomly assigned, including breaking up family members. A group of four people should not be allowed to play an entire season (for us that’s three sessions) together, it takes away from a valuable social aspect and has the possibility to create cliques or making people feel left out (you know like in elementary school dodgeball and being the last one picked). However, after this weekend I also see a benefit to playing with the same people. Our first loss came to a team that most of the people had curled together for three years.  You learn everyone’s strengths and weaknesses.  So for a bonspiel or more competitive situation - having an established team is a benefit. For a learning situation or 5U (under five years experience) league, (IMHO) not so much.

I was also reminded of something learned this when attending conferences throughout my teaching career- learning how other groups operate really can help improve things back home.  This may be why our district administrators stopped sending teachers to conferences.  As a new-ish curler hearing about how other clubs do things gives me ideas on how to improve the stuff we do locally.  Seeing other facilities also makes me realize how good I’ve got it in some ways.  They didn’t have monitors over the house so I had no idea the exact location my skip wanted the stone or where the other stones were in relationship! I later learned we are one of a few clubs that have that. Yes, I’m spoiled. It was good to travel with people who have some idea and influence on the direction the club is heading.  No organization is perfect, but we can learn so much if we are willing to try new things.  Sometimes the only thing holding a group back is the old guard who have the “we’ve always done it this way” mindset.

Personally, I do want to figure out how to use my new broom as a stabilizer so I can be like the cool kids. In the same vein I also feel I should learn about using a stopwatch. I think this might help with my weight (the speed of the stone).  It would also help me to look like one of the cool kids and have a stopwatch either on my broom or hanging from my belt.🙄

Good Curling everyone!

So will I do this again? Sure! If invited by the right people and available I think it would be great.  Will I try to put together a team?  I’m an introvert so probably not, but “Crazy Bruce” may have other ideas.