Team Clendenan

I have to admit it. It’s hard to fathom why kids would actually like going to a curling club on Labour Day – or their chaperones for that matter. What sane person voluntarily spends time in cottage holiday traffic and choses to trade in the last hours of the summer sun to throw around grey rocks? For competitive curlers, it’s a no-brainer.

The actual definition of Labour Day is the “celebration of workers and their families”. In 1872 it was primarily the beginning of allowing people the chance to campaign for better working conditions or pay but as far as today’s kids are concerned, it’s merely the last day before being sent back to jail . . . er, rather, school. For Team Clendenan however, it’s a precious chance to hit the ice that would bring about more complaints if it didn’t happen than if it did.

Once the new T-shirt colour for the evening was decided, the girls set out to tackle Team Duivesteyn, a mixed group of senior bantam players. Almost propelled by a last blast of summer energy, the scoreboard posted a three pointer in our favour right away, followed by a restricted second posting of a single point for the opposition. Moving into the third end however, the skips began to battle it out with aggressive unflinching strategy. Sometimes we paid for it and other times it paid off ( like in the fourth end when we were able to draw for 4) but over all we stayed far enough ahead of the mistakes to be able to accept a handshake form the opposition with a final score of 7-5 for the good guys.

Whether smiling because of the win, or celebrating because of the team “work” and the families who cheered them along, EGMR (Emma Grace, Michaela and Rebecca) had a lot to feel good about when it came to sacrificing their vacation day and most of it had nothing to do with the scoreboard. It has to be a good sign when the players linger at the club long after the game has completed and you’ be hard pressed to find any evidence of anything but friendship. Some say that a new beginning can’t happen until and ending has occurred and with Labour Day officially closing the door on summer, whatever window opens as a result, the girls are ready to breathe it in.

Ready or not, here we come!