Whoops - Our Bismarck SummerSpiel Ends Abruptly

Game 4 in our SummerSpiel showed us how the other half lives. This time it was us who were down five after three and still down five playing end six. A guard might have earned us a steal of three but it slid deep to the four foot leaving Ron Windloss (Detroit Lakes, MN) a hit and a win. The good news is you can tell Ernie Oliver if you see him that I have found him a Minnesota team for next year's Stick Bonspiel.
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Game 3 (A Big Start Again in Game 3 at Bismarck SummerSpiel)The second game of the day started strong for us again - a five point 3-end lead is always a good way to begin. The challenge in this spiel is holding the lead as the frost creeps in from the edges and, to be honest, the body sends messages along the lines of "are you crazy thinking this was a good idea". In any case, we had the extra motivation to win this one. The loser drew the dreaded 11pm Saturday evening draw. That was  enough to keep us focused. Jon Mielke once again called a solid game and we were able to hang on for a victory over Clarice and her sons Marshall and Mitchell from Minot, along with the second young man named Brandon we have played this week. We get the day off to check out the sales at the shopping mall before game 4 later Saturday.
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Game 2 (A Game 2 Bounce-Back at Bismarck SummerSpiel)  We started the day with a round of golf as our loosening-up exercise for the day. Game 2 was a bounce back game for as we we took on the Bismarck - Neutz team. Jason, Chuck, Molly and Michelle were gracious enough to let us get out to a 5-point 3-end lead before they launched their attack. A four on the fourth gave us the hint this wasn't going to be easy but we held on for the next few ends and grabbed a three on the 7th to lead by four coming home. Thankfully our skip Jon made his last shot to remove a stone or we'd have left Jason a draw for the four. The veteran left-hander Reid Lumbard master-minded a team shuffle when he suggested he should drop to lead from third. He'll have trouble getting his starting position back for tonight's game.
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Game 1 (Slow Start to Our Bismarck SummerSpiel) It might be inevitable that 3-60 year old Manitobans and a nearly 60 North Dakotan would fade late in the first game of the annual Bismarck Summer-Spiel. We looked over our young opposition in  the clubroom and concluded age and experience would probably be good enough but as Nathan, Brandon, Kyle and Adam slid from the hack with their practice slides we knew we were in trouble.  You know how close a North Dakota kid lives to the Canadian border by their delivery. The 'North Dakota tuck' is a fair copy of the Manitoba version and these young men were pretty fair practitioners. Turns out three young men from Devil's Lake and one from Rolla would outlast.  We out-witted them for a few ends, leading 3-1 after four ends. Things went awry at that point and when Adam Kitchens drew the four foot on us behind a couple of centre guards to set up a steal of one on the seventh and go up two coming home we knew we were cooked.

Like most youngsters learning to throw with the tuck, these young guys have occasional line of delivery challenges but as they say in pro sports ' they have a lot of upside'. And no question, it was a pleasure to play them. I know how important it is for a parent to hear their kids were real gentlemen on the ice - and these young men surely were.

** In our tenth annual, Reid & Lind Lumbard and I always feel like we've come home when we walk through the doors of the Capital Curling Club. Jon Mielke (who chaired the successful 2002 Worlds), club prez Ken Sambor, Dave Jensen and so many others have become very good friends over the past ten years - and isn't that really the beauty of our sport.