The Bolt

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June 23, 2006

We Said Hello Goodbye

Friday night, and I'm going through a large stack of CD's, deciding which ones to sell in a garage sale tomorrow, when I stumble upon No Jacket Required from Phil Collins. While I'm deciding to keep it or sell it, I pause to open the case. As soon as I see the distinctively ugly green and purple disc, I remember that this is the very first CD I ever purchased!

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This album was released in February 1985, and I picked it up that summer. This was at the same time that I bought my first Compact Disc player from Radio Shack. Strangely enough, that CD player still works 21 years later.

I popped the CD into my Mac and flipped through the tracks, settling on "We Said Hello Goodbye". I absolutely loved this album for the first few years I owned it, but this ballad at the end was usually a candidate for the "next track" button. However, today I let it play and I started grinning as I recalled the lyrics:

Now isn't that funny. Here's a song that one could interpret (at the most superficial level) as talking about moving from one house to another.... yep, it's ironic that I would settle on that track, of all the tracks on all of the albums that are flying past my eyes.

So, I decided to say goodbye to the first CD that I ever purchased. Perhaps it will find a new owner tomorrow.

Posted by Hammer at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)

The Game-Saving Shot and Sportsmanship

It was one of the last games of the season in our Friday night mixed curling league, and for the first seven ends it was going well.... The score was 8 to 6 for us and the seventh end had just ended by the opposition scoring one point. This meant that we only had the eighth end to play and we were up by two points coming home with the hammer. How much better could our situation have been?

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Having been in this situation in the past (once, mid-season) and having lost a game under exactly the same circumstances, I knew that it the game was far from over. However, all we had to do was "keep it clean" and either score one point or give up a steal of one point and then the game would be ours.

The opposition came into the house with their first rock and I told our lead to take it out. She missed the shot and her rock went sailing past. No problem.

Their second rock ended up being a nice high center guard that we couldn't yet touch, so I told the lead to try to draw down to their rock in the house so we would be second shot. She was light though, and our second rock ended up staggered with their center guard. Oops, two misses in a row.

On and on it went like this for all of the first thirteen rocks (figure 1, we are red)... the other team would make a decent shot, and we would totally mess ours up. Literally. We would either flash past on our hits or end up short on our draws. If we did manage to make a hit, it ended up being on the wrong side and their rock ended up hitting two of ours out and itself stayed in. Anything that could go wrong - did.

As we missed shot after shot, my mood went from chipper, to unhappy, and then to pissed off and finally leading into my first shot I was an absolute jerk. My third came down to ask me where I wanted her to hold the broom for my first shot, and I ended up glaring at her and demanding, "what the fuck is going on? Why are you all missing your damn shots??" Of course she was hurt and didn't bother replying. I showed her where to put the broom and I headed down to the hack.

Being in such a state of mind is no way to play, and it almost certainly guarantees that you won't make your shot. You are too busy concentrating on your selfish feelings of anger, and not busy enough concentrating on the shot you need to make. I really had a relatively routine draw to make through a two-and-a-half rock port to the button. It should have been makeable, but not for me at that point in time. I threw my first rock way too light and it fell short of even getting to the rings (figure 2). That did nothing to improve my mood, and I swore out loud so that all of our two teams and even the teams two sheets over heard me. Very, very unsportsman like, and I'm sure at least a few people were thinking just that.

My change in mood was not lost on the spectators up in the lounge. After the game, one of my friends said that he was surprised the ice wasn't melting around me, my face was so red and I looked steaming mad. The unbelievable outcome of this final end had also attracted the attention of two other tables of players, and I had more of an audience than I knew (or wanted).

Seeing that I had just closed up my only clear path to the button, the opposing skip didn't have to do too much to sew up the game. As the rock I just threw was also overlapped with one of our previous rocks and wasn't in a position to be raised, he decided to try and guard our only other rock that could be raised on the top right-hand side of the house. His guard was a bit short and wide, but essentially unless I pulled off a miracle, we had lost the game fantastically (figure 3).

I don't know what caused me to have a change of heart, but I did. At that precise moment I decided to release my anger and get back into the game. I told my third, "I only have one shot available, and I'm going to make it." I walked out in front of the house, turned around, and stared at the arrangement of rocks and angles for a good twenty seconds. I said, "put your broom right here, please," and then turned back to get into the hack.

To make the shot that I had just called, I would have to skinny past the guard the other skip had just thrown by about one inch. Then my shot rock would have to contact the rock to be raised at almost a perfect angle, and this angle was decently steep. Finally, I had to have almost perfect weight to get it fully into the four-foot rings -- too little, and the raised rock wouldn't make it into the four-foot; too much, and it would be pushed out past the three rocks around the four-foot.

As I settled into the hack and made sure that both sweepers were attentive and ready, I knew I would make the shot. I could see the shot in my mind, and although it was tight, it was makeable. I slid out and let go of the rock about as perfectly as I ever had before. At that point in my delivery I usually would have been silently glad that I didn't fall over or miss the broom, but not then; I was in the zone, and all I could see was the line that the rock had to travel to make the shot.

I called on the sweepers, and then off... and then on once more for a bit... and then off just as the rock passed by the guard with about half an inch of clearance. By this point only one of the sweepers had room, and I called him on to hold the line again, and then finally off - I could see the angle, and it was right on. After the shot rock made contact with the rock to raise, I called for more sweeping to take the raised rock into the button, but my second didn't put his broom down... he could see that the weight was all there.

About twenty people watched my final rock come to rest biting the button.

We had won the game.

I was told later that the lounge full of spectators erupted with surprise and delight that such a difficult game-saving shot was just made. The rest of our team was smiling, and the opposing skip came up to me and started to bow, chanting: "we are not worthy!" I just nodded and shook his hand, thanking him for the game. My teammates patted me on the back, and I told each of them they played a good game. I'm sure that they were all too wrapped up in the moment to realise that I wasn't smiling.

I was relieved, yes, but I wasn't happy. I was proud of my technical shot-making ability at that point, but I was quite ashamed of my overall on-ice performance. Winning the game just didn't mean that much to me right then, and even now it doesn't. That phrase, "it doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's how to play the game" was suddenly making sense to me. I used to think that it was just something that losers said to console themselves. No, it turns out that it really does matter how you play, and you can end up feeling bad even if you win.

According to Yoda: "Do, or do not. There is no try". (It feels somewhat strange to quote a fictional character, but if you've seen the movie then you understand the gravity of that quote) I was going to write that in the future I will try to behave better, but actually it's more resolute than that: I have made a commitment to myself that I will not act that poorly in a game again.

Posted by Hammer at 12:41 PM | Comments (0)