Busy week for Nutmeg

It is a busy week for Nutmeg and Nutmeggers. The Women's Crystal Snowflake starts on Friday with lots of good teams heading in for the spiel. The draw is up on the website here and will be updated as the event progresses. Stop in and see some great curling if you get a chance.

Also, this week starting on Thursday is the National Mixed Doubles Championship in Seattle. Attending and trying to advance to the Worlds will be Derek and Charrissa. You can follow the action on the Granite curling club website.

Best of luck to all the competitors, near and far.

JH

Harvest Bonspiel aftermath

In the previous post I failed to mention Michael Nordquist and Christen Bossu who were also playing at the Harvest..mia culpa. They along with Pam and Terry Smith had a good time and enjoyed the Philly CC hospitality.

Karl and Elly Bockley ending up winning the third event, the Mad Anthony Wayne trophy. A really good game for them in the final as they dominated on Sunday.

Jeff and Sally Hannon with Rob Reihl won the fourth event, the Friendship trophy. Subbing for Sally on Sunday was Pam Moan, who was subbing for another sub after Jeff ending up losing two leads in one game. Sally went down to a knee injury in the 2nd end of the first event semis and the sub (Elizabeth from Plainfield) went down with a twisted ankle in the 7th end of the same game. Pam was playing with Terry and Pam so she was available to jump in Sunday although Jeff was worried that he might need more than one lead for that game as well. But all worked out and Pam only came close to getting taken out in the 4th end.

A fabulous event as always and with the theme being James Bond many martinis were consumed. A great time was had by all and many of the Nutmeggers will be returning to this event in future years. If you want to try a mixed spiel in the future, this is one to put on the calendar.

Jeff

Nutmeg at the Harvest in Philly

Nutmeggers are on the road again this weekend with a trip to the Harvest Bonspiel at the Philadelphia CC. Located in Paoli, PA this is a great event with lots of fun to be had. Attending will be Elly and Karl Bockly playing with folks from Plainfield and Philly. Sally and Jeff and Rob will also be there playing with Nancy from Philly. New to the party this year is Pam Moan and Terry and Pam Smith playing with Roland from Philly.

Curling starts on Thursday night for Jeff and Terry with Elly starting on Friday. Sixteen teams make up the draw and there is always a good party on Saturday night.

Jeff

Competitive league week 4

Teams Mannik and Surka continue to roll along, both without a loss on the ledger. Lots of blowouts last night. Just the way the ice curls sometimes.

Good match next week as Team J. Smith takes on Team Surka. Will Team Surka be brought back to the pack? The next three weeks see all the top teams play each other. Once the dust clears who will still be at the top? Only the pebble knows for sure.

Run with the big dogs or stay on the porch.

Olympic Festival at Rockefeller Center

Numerous Nutmeggers attend the Olympic Festival at Rockefeller Center on Wednesday 11/4. I don't want to list them all in case I miss someone. The juniors presented hats to all the Olympic curlers in a ceremony held on the ice rink. There was a curling booth set up to showcase curling in the Olympics and lots of people helped out there and chatted with interested parties. Some of the ice crew was present as well trying to help out with getting the Olympic curlers to throw some rocks. That was really interesting as they set up a "sheet" the short way on the rink so it was only about 40 feet long or so. And they had skating going on just before the curling demonstation was to take place. But people got to see rocks being thrown.

Not sure if any of it made it onto the Today show. A quick review of the DVR did not find anything on TV.

Thanks to all who attended and helped out in anyway they could.

Competitive league week 2

The big battle last night was Smith vs Smith, which sounds like a divorce proceeding or a cough drop challenge. But it was a huge battle on the ice instead. Team T. Smith (nee Haggis) gave team J. Smith (nee Canada) all they could handle for 8 ends. It came down to the final skips rocks with Terry having a tough come around tap back to try and steal. Close but no cigar as the saying goes and Joseph and team prevailed.

Team Surka started there run with a win in the first time on the ice. Team Bagley put a beat down on Team Purkey/Stannard. Team Mannik (without any Manniks) dropped a big 4 ender on Team Hannon to seal a victory.

The game of the week next time is Team Surka v Team Hannon (without any Hannons). Derek is not too concerned since he only loses this game in December.

Run with the big dogs or stay on the porch.
JH

Nutmeg at the Bog Spiel

The "we" in the following is Charrissa with Derek, Matt and Chris. (editor)

We were sorry communicators this weekend. I'll tell you - we were so tired all the time - pretty much we played our games, hung out and socialized (and ate meals) and then took a nap, and then came back and played. We did manage to squeeze in a little sightseeing on Saturday - checked out the Cranberry Harvest Festival (as far as we could see, it was just one room of booths, not much), tasted wines at the Cape Cod Winery, and checked out some cranberry bogs (no harvesting going on though).

We had a very tight game - but pulled off the win in the 1st event final! Very exciting. We played great teams all the way through. The first event final was against the junior boys team - Team Hoge (they were at Nutmeg for the Blazing Leaves). As a team, it wasn't our best game, but we got some breaks. We went into the 8th, tied with hammer, Derek had an open takeout to win the game.

We played great teams all the way through - it turns out that all of the other event finals were won by teams that we beat - and I think we may have been each of their only losses. We played Bob DeVine of Broomstones in the semi-final - that was a good match. His last shot was a kinda of crazy double angle runback to remove our counter, try to stick around to take two and tie the game. Didn't make it.

We also played a team from Border (a Canadian club on the border, not surprisingly) and Ed and Candice Clark from Nashua - they were playing with Mark and Debbie Kanakis - Mark threw third.

Border CC is a fantastic club to visit for a bonspiel . Two sheets attached to a giant old house, 3 floors with upstairs viewing. (editor)

One other personal highlight - I was very proud to note that I was the only female of all 16 players in the semi-finals. Well - I guess I'm sad to say that, because it still indicates that men are stronger at curling - but I was proud to at least be representing!

Food was good, hospitality was good, the bar was excellent (they made me cosmos all weekend!).

JH for Charrissa