Congratulations to Angela for making the school curling team. She is playing on the Junior Mixed team again this season. All but one girl are back from last year’s team. Angela is throwing vice rocks. They have already played three games and are a perfect 3-0.
Grand Slam of Curling
Gillian and Angela had the opportunity to go to the Grand Slam of Curling Player’s Championship with their school curling team. This years event was at Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre at the old Maple Leaf Gardens. Claudia wanted to go, so I bought tickets for the two of us and we headed down as well. The corner of Carleton and Church. We went into the Loblaws to buy some snacks.
The main entrance on Carleton.
There is an NHL sized hockey rink on the third level. The facility can seat 2,539 people. Seating is mainly on the east and west sides, with a couple of rows of end balcony seats.
The Players Championship is the world’s 15 highest ranked men and 15 highest ranked women curlers competing for high stakes, but more importantly for some of the Canadian teams a berth in the Olympic Trials in Winnipeg in December.
We were there for the 7th and 8th draws. Here is Team Howard warming up.
Manitoba’s Chelsea Carey.
Team Koe’s Rycroft and Simmons.
Mirjam Ott of Switzerland, Kevin Koe and Glenn Howard.
Team Gushue, they played Team Howard in the feature game. Team Howard won 5-4.
Brad Gushue.
Kevin Koe lost to Team Frans 7-6 in extra ends.
The curling zamboni.
Gushue pondering his next move.
Glenn Howard.
Jennifer Jones watching the action.
After each draw they kick everyone out of the seating area.
Warm-ups for the 8th draw.
Rachel Homan and Heather Nedohin were playing on the far sheet.
Claudia had a good time, any time you get off school is a good time.
The Mount Carmel curling team.
Angela hidden in the photo above.
Team Jones beat Team Tirinzoni (SUI) 8-6.
Claudia and I moved down to sit in the first row. Nkeiruka Ezekh of Team Sidorova of Russia.
2013 World Champion Eve Muirhead.
Stephanie Lawton of Saskatchewan defeated Team Muirhead 7-5.
Team Jones third Kaitlyn Lawes.
We had a good time, our seats were up in the end balcony right above Claudia’s head. It gave you a good view down the sheets of ice. It was kind of tricky figuring out how to get there initially and to get food or go to the washroom you had to go out and then go to the side areas. For the second game we had a waitress come around and take orders.
Afterwards the Mount Carmel curling team got to meet Team Middaugh, the lead for the team is Leigh Armstrong who one of the coaches knows well.
They sign autographs for the kids who bought scarves.
Angela and Gillian came with Claudia and I instead of going back on the school bus. We walked down to Yonge to have dinner at Kenzo, the Japanes noodle house on Dundas, west of Bay St.
We stopped at Dundas Square to watch Billions Cobra a street performer.
He uses fire in his show, he starts with some juggling.
Then moves up to a flaming bull whip.
And his grand finale is fitting his body through a tennis racquet on fire.
A little contortion juggling.
The flaming tennis racquet.
Curling Final 2….continued
Congratulations to Angela and her junior mixed curling team. They won a nail-biter in the final played this afternoon at the Brampton Curling Club. It was a close game that came down to the last rock. It has been four weeks since they were originally scheduled to play. Here they are shaking hands after after watching their opponents last rock miss its mark. The final score was 4-3 in six ends.
Angela receiving her medal from one of her coaches, Mr. Young.
Receiving congratulations from Mrs. Giovino.
The team with the curling coaches.
Angela with the trophy.
The 2013 ROPSSAA Junior Mixed Champions.
The final score, St Michael stole one in the third and fourth ends, but Mount Carmel stole one in the sixth and final end. Angela’s skip called a good game and made a great shot in the fifth end to setup a draw for 2 points to tie the score heading into the final end.
OFSAA Update
After a few days of uncertainty, ROPSSAA finally made a descision and are allowing the St Michael Senior Girls curling team to compete at OFSAA. While it is good that the winning team is going, it was unfair to mislead the Mount Carmel girls and say that they may be going instead. Regardless it was still a great season for Gillian and her teammates.
This should also mean Angela’s final will go ahead as well.
Curling Final 2….postponed
Today was Angela’s Junior Mixed Curling “scheduled” finals, the game has been postponed until after the March Break. The school they were suppose to play was not allowed to play today due to an athletic ban on their school.
On Monday there was a senior boys tier 1 ROPSSAA hockey final between Mount Carmel and St Michael from Bolton. The Mount Carmel team won 6-1, but not before 4 St Michael players were ejected in the third period due to an incident with the ref (or zamboni driver…details from the girls are sketchy at this point). The St Michael fans were unruly using f-bombs and other disrespectful actions.
As a result Angela’s team put in some practice and eventually watched the Mt Carmel Junior Girls win their finals and the Junior Boys lose theirs.
Angela and some of her teammates taking a break. It’s too bad they didn’t get to play today, it will be even worse if the athletic ban is upheld and they win by default.
The story doesn’t end there, it also affects Gillian and her teammates, as you recall Mount Carmel played St Michael yesterday in the Senior Girls finals. Because of the athletic ban, they would be ineligible to compete at OFSAA the week after March Break. Since the deadline for team entry is Thursday at midnight, there is a chance that Gillian’s team will be going to Ottawa to represent the Region of Peel. From what I gathered from the coaches today, a decision will be made by tomorrow morning.
Curling Final 1
Today was Gillian’s senior girls curling finals against St Michael from Bolton at the Brampton Curling Club. Unfortunately they came out on the wrong end of a 10-5 final. They were up 2-1 after the second end but after they scored 3 in the third end, the other team stole 4 in the fourth to put the game out of reach. Here are Gillian and Amanda waiting for a measurement on the ice.
The girls had a hard time reading the ice early on. They just weren’t catching any breaks.
A time out after the fourth end.
They ran out of rocks in the eighth end. It was a good season for them as they all graduate this year.
Their coaches are dedicated and put in a lot of time and effort for all the kids.
Alie, Steph, Gillian, Amanda and Abbey.
The girls with their coaches, Ms. Giovino and Mr. Young.
Gillian receiving her medal.
Gillian and Amanda.
The Mount Carmel 2012-13 Senior Girls Curling team.
Booking More Time Off
Looks like I’ll be booking more time off work this week. Today was Angela’s Junior Mixed Semi-finals at the Brampton Curling Club. Her team won 10-0 and they never had the hammer.
Angela was playing lead.
She did pretty good considering she was sick most of the weekend.
She said she had to take a break after sweeping so hard.
It was 5-0 after 4 ends.
Angela and her teammates.
Getting ready to deliver her rock.
Celebrating the victory. They move on to the finals against St Michaels on Wednesday.
Tuesday afternoon is Gillian’s Senior Girls finals. Good luck to both of them!
Curling Playoffs
Both Gillian and Angela have made the ROPSSAA Curling playoffs. Gillian’s team played Friday in their semi-final and won 10-1 in 7 ends. They play in the finals on Tuesday afternoon. Angela plays in their semi-final game on Monday. Good Luck to both of them.
Gillian’s Curling Game
Gillian’s last regular season curling game was Monday. I had the day off, so I picked up Claudia and Angela after school and we headed down to the Dixie Curling Club. Gillian’s team was 5-0 going into the game. Their regular skip was away at Space Camp in Alabama.
Without their regular skip, there was a lot of curling by committee.
One of their teammates had to leave early, so they were down to three, which meant more sweeping for Gillian.
They won the game 8-2 to finish 6-0. They play their semi final game on Friday.
Geraldton, ON
I was up in Geraldton, Ontario this past week installing a new monitoring site. The site is half way between Geraldton and Longlac. Flew into Thunder Bay and then a 3.5 hour drive from there.
There was a lot of snow in town, they received a good dumping of snow just before we got there.
Everywhere you go in town, people get out of their cars and leave them running. Not just to run into the local store, but when they go in for dinner or the grocery store.
On the Wednesday, it was -26°C and -38°C with the windchill, but Thursday was a balmy -13°C with the windchill.
On Thursday evening we went to the Geraldton Curling Club to watch the Northern Ontario Senior Men’s Provincial Curling Championship. There were eight teams from around Northern Ontario playing for the right to play in the Canadian Senior Men’s Championship to be held in PEI in March. Among those playing was Al Hackner, a mainstay at the Labatt Brier during the 80’s and into the 90’s. He won 2 Brier’s and a World Championship.
On Friday we headed back to Thunder Bay to catch our flight back to Toronto. There is a giant snowman in Beardmore, ON. It stands at 35ft.
My colleague had never been to the Terry Fox Monument, so I made him stop to see a piece of Canadiana.
It was another challenge getting home, we boarded our flight, and before I had boarded they had already made an announcement that there was a ground closure at Pearson Airport due to snow in Toronto. They only had one runway open and with a backlog of flights, they delayed us. We spent one hour sitting on the plane, before they de-planed us and waited for another hour before we boarded again and were able to take-off.