Team Clendenan

For those who have not had the pleasure of being a spectator or an athlete at the Ontario Curling Provincials, the experience would be best described as Olympic in nature. Complete with traditions including a bag piper, flag bearers and a parade of champions, the recognition as a finalist amongst the top eight teams in Ontario is coveted and the emotions that go with it are very real. It would be understandable to be intimidated by the “bigness” of the event but when you have nothing to lose, it’s a little easier to take it all in and Team Clendenan intended to do just that.

Knowing that their competitors were primarily two years older than they were and immersed in talent from as far away as Niagara Falls and Ottawa, the purple plan was to hold tight to the routines that had brought them success throughout the year and to concentrate on one game at a time. In a seven game round robin format over three days, endurance would be a factor for success but the upside was that the pressure would change from fear of elimination to striving for consistency right across the event. Essentially it would all boil down to the wise words of Yoda “Do or do not. There is no try”.

And do they did. . . in the first game and the second game and then they did it again in the fifth, the sixth and were one rock shy of doing it in the seventh game as well until the leader board glowed with Team Clendenan in a solid fourth place finish in Ontario. There was honestly nothing more that the girls could have done to make the fans more proud and the whispers about the team having two more years to compete for the top spot were hard to miss. At the end of the day, with or without Yoda, the girls in purple checked off the last of their goals for the year and the smiles couldn’t have been any bigger.

May the force be with you in 2015/2016!