Team Clendenan

If what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger then Team Clendenan appeared to be aiming for invincible status at the K.W. Granite cash spiel. Still regrouping from the difficult emotions of the week prior, a second team member was bestowed the terrible news of a death in the family immediately before the competition and it threatened to dim the purple sparks to smoldering twinkles. Continuing ahead with the event would not only test the emotional strength of the team but it also meant taking on additional routine disruptions including a coach change and a spare player for the first half of the event. Amazingly, the dedication and commitment of the team brought about the “down but not out” philosophy and conceding was not ever really on the radar. Consequently, the appropriate First Aid treatment was implemented and the decision was made to continue.

Once the event was under way, the Band-Aids weren’t obvious but the struggle to compete as if it was business as usual was very evident. Still managing to hang on to three out of five wins in their round robin, Team Clendenan respectably ended up in a three way tie for second place. Unfortunately, without a standard playoff format because of the club’s inability to include Friday night in its program, the girls dropped immediately to the C division finals (based on their shoot out score) and the finish line was about to be pushed further from view.

An hour before the final game, a powerful flu bug hit three out of four players which created scrambling for rule clarifications on playing with two more (different) spares. In a worst case scenario, the lineup would consist of our second moving up to skip, a spare lead from another team would vice and an 11 year old would hold up the front end but as it turns out the skip was able to stay vertical, the second viced and two spares assumed the remaining positions. There were whispers about the value of continuing but forfeit is a word that real competitors avoid like the plague and since there was no plan “B” there was no choice but to adopt Winston Churchill’s words that “If you’re going through hell, keep going”. It was nothing short of phenomenal that the scoreboard was tied coming home with hammer and the gallery couldn’t help but root for the underdogs. Heartwarmingly, even the two team members – that were so ill they couldn’t even continue with support on the sidelines – stayed in touch via texting but in the end the 110% effort needed 111% out and a loss was recorded with a single stolen point by the opposition.

As the teams now heads into a well-deserved Christmas break, a goodly chunk of family time and health recovery will go a long way towards success in the New Year. It would be easy to be down spirited about the nearly impossible obstacles that inevitably skewed the results this weekend, but with the long term goals still within reach on the horizon in 2015, K.W. was merely a blip in the climb. If the girls can get through a Winston Churchill weekend and still make it to the finals, just imagine what is in store for results when they are healthy and reunited for the January battle for a Provincial birth!