The Bolt

I spared as lead for a team Thursday of last week, playing in a men's league out of the Granite Curling Club. Nobody on this team used a stopwatch. After the first end, I could also tell that I was the strongest sweeper on the team. Putting these two facts together, I surmised that I was going to have to do most of the weight judgement for the rest of the game.

The game was pretty close, with both teams curling fairly well and yet still making a few mistakes along the way. But then in the fifth end where we did not have hammer, it came down to our last skip rock... our skip was drawing against two and absolutely had to get it there, or we were likely going to give up three points.

The skip's delivery was fine, but about half way down the sheet the rock started to slow down too much. I started sweeping aggressively. The third was yelling "woah, line!" from in the back of the house, but I couldn't stop, so I just yelled back "needs it!" We fought back and forth like this as the rock travelled toward the button, but I never stopped sweeping. I did look up and make sure that our line was eventually going to be OK, and it was. At last the rock came to rest biting the button and about one inch to the good - that is, we were lying shot. We made it. (The great conclusion to this part of the story is that their skip wrecked on his last shot, and we ended up stealing a point that end!)

The reason that I didn't stop sweeping was because I had confidence. I knew that I could judge the weight, and I knew without a doubt that this rock had to be swept. I wasn't willing to let the third override me, but I certainly did let him know that I wasn't just ignoring him - I let him know that I was in a better position to judge the weight, and I wasn't stopping. That level of confidence came to me early in the game, and it never left me for the rest of the game. In fact, the final rock that our skip threw in the eighth end that game had to be swept to within a one foot circle, and we got it there. After that game was over, and we won because of that last shot, the skip thanked us for a great job of sweeping that night.

Fast forward to the next game that I curled... again, I spared as lead on another men's league team, this time at the CN Curling Club. However, this time I knew the other three guys from before, and I knew they were all better at curling than I was. So I had very shaky confidence that night; I knew that I could judge the weight of rocks, but I did not feel that I was the *best* judge of weight among the four of us. I was completely willing to be overridden on my decisions, and in retrospect it really hurt us.

In the sixth end of that game, we were facing a similar situation: our skip was throwing his first rock, and although we did have hammer, the opposition had two rocks in the four-foot, one completely buried. There was no way to hit them out, so he had to draw. Again, it absolutely had to be there, or we were going to have at least one point stolen against us.

The skip's delivery on this rock was good. We watched the rock travel down the ice, curling nicely as it went... and then about two-thirds of the way there we dug in and swept fairly hard. As the rock crossed the far hog line, the third called out, "line's good, just for weight". It actually wasn't so much the words that were important, it was his tone and what we inferred from it. We thought he was saying, "take a look; are you sure you need to sweep it?" So both of us stopped sweeping and watched the rock slide for the next six feet. Wrong move, since the rock still needed sweeping. We got on the rock again, but it was too late and it ended up stopping a little short - it was only second shot. The opposing skip threw a guard, and then we were in trouble. They stole one point from us that end.

What went wrong? Why did we stop sweeping? It was all about confidence. Personally, I didn't feel confident enough to say, "needs it", and let the third know that although the line was good we still needed to sweep. I didn't feel confident enough in my own ability compared to his in judging weight. However, I was in a much better position to judge the weight being right over the rock, and I should have taken the responsibility. Instead I deferred, placing his experience above my own ability.

This mistake only led to a further decrease in my confidence - and I can only imagine that our second was feeling the same way. It should be pretty obvious that more sweeping errors were going to be made that game. And they were. Perhaps not as large as that one, but they were there, and everyone on the team could see when these errors occured.

Now comes the final blow: when the person making a shot has lost confidence in the two people who are going to sweep his rock, then his stress level goes up by an order of magnitude. Now he feels that he has to be much more precise in his shot-making. So not only do these sweeping errors serve to undermine the sweepers, they also undermine the shot-makers, and it becomes a downward spiral.

The last rock in the last end of that game was a draw to just inside the eight foot cirle. It should have been quite easily makeable. However, two factors contributed to this shot not being made: first, the skip likely threw a little extra weight on the rock just at the last moment of being delivered (called "raising" the rock). I am only guessing this, because the interval time on the stopwatch actually said that the shot should have been good for the draw we needed. Secondly, this rock was swept from the time it crossed the first hog line to the time it reached just over center - because there was no way that us sweepers were going to be light and come up short on this draw like we had in the past.

So the rock is raised and given a little extra weight, and the sweepers are on it for half a sheet. Ouch. That's a recipe for disaster, and that's exactly what we got. The rock sailed right through the house, and we lost the game.

If sweepers are to do their jobs effectively they must be confident in their own ability, and they must assert themselves to ensure that rocks are swept when they know that they need sweeping. To do anything else is not playing the position properly, and will easily contribute to losing the game.