Intense women’s curling final

If you still don’t think curling can be exciting, you weren’t watching the women’s final between Canada and Sweden this afternoon.  Of course, the majority of the crowd was Canadian, and you’ve never heard such a ruckus.  They’ve been very vocal throughout the whole tournament; ringing cowbells, cheering, and donning outrageous outfits.  You’d have thought it was the Stanley Cup, not a subdued game like curling. They even did the “wave” at one point.

 The level of play was amazing; I didn’t think rocks were capable of sliding that way.  It was one difficult shot after another.  Double take-outs, stealing points, the whole gamut of plays occurred over and over.  By the 6^th end the score was 4-2 and it looked like Sweden might be able to take it away. Canada came back with some skillful strategy tilting the scales so that it was 5-4 by the beginning of the 8^th. The 8^th was scoreless, and Sweden tried to keep the 9^th the same, so they could try and score with the final rock, but they missed a key slide and Canada took advantage for 1 more.  The crowd was so excited in the 10^th I don’t know if any of the players could hear each other call across the ice for directions.

 Just when it looked like Canada had it closed out, they made a bad shot, setting Sweden up to take 2.  The Swedes pulled it off and the match went into an extra end. It all came down to the final slide by Canadian skip Cheryl Bernard.  Sweden had 2 rocks in the house, on fairly close to the button.  Bernard managed to knock one rock and it just kissed the other, pushing it into the button. Sweden had it won.

 One of the interesting things about curling, the players are “regular” people. Canadian skip Cheryl Bernard is a stay-at-home mom.  I’ve heard the commentators refer to players on various teams as bartenders, part-timers at hardware stores, just regular folks who play this game for the love of it. Unlike, say, a cross country skier, conditioning isn’t that big a part of the game, so you can have a job.  Plus, let’s face it, how many huge curling endorsement deals have you heard of? These folks have to work to put food on the table.