Tuesday, February 23rd – our final day in Vancouver.
Before getting out of town, our last ticketed event was for womens curling in the morning. Fortunately for us, the venue was just a 6 block walk from where we were staying. Talk about lucky. I wasn’t sure what to expect today. We bought these tickets back in November from the official US Tickets sales site – mostly just because they were available. My sister was familiar w/the game, and she convinced me and Kay to go. Honestly, I was looking forward to just a casual morning observing and learning but I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Tucked into a residential neighborhood, the Curling Center was pretty impressive as it holds over 5,000 people. Once again, the stands were dominated by Canadians. Besides Hockey, Curling is the biggest sport in Canada so everyone is into it. I needed a lesson as to what was going on. I’m not sure how to describe it, some say shuffleboard on ice, some say like bowling. It definately has aspects of both sports as it combines athletic ability but involves a lot of strategy.
While not terribly exciting, it was mesmerizing as it had my attention for the full 2 & 1/2 hours of play. We were seated on an “end” and the US women were playing right in front of us. The team included a couple women from Wisconsin, including the team captain Debbie McCormack. There were also 3 other games going on at the same time, and most of the crowd was watching the Canada/Great Britain game right next to the US. Our team wasn’t doing to well coming into today, as we had a record of just 2-5. Canada was in first place at 6-1. I won’t go into detail of how the game is played (best to figure that out as watching it) but i gotta admit that it was incredibly captivating to figure out the strategy of the teams as they played each round (called an “end). Best score after 10 “ends” wins. The US was playing China, who currently were in 3rd place. The match was back and forth and ended up tied going into the final “end”. Unfortunately, China ended up on top and winning 6-5. The match w/the Canadians and Great Britain was really exciting though, as it ended tied after the 10 ends and played a “sudden-death” type round. When Canada played their last stone to get the point, they won and the place went crazy.
Watching the game made me want to go out and try it as I know Milwaukee’s area curling clubs have occasional open-houses. I have a couple friends who play it, and they offered to teach me one day so I may need to take them up on their offer.
This was our final activity for the games. Ironically, the beautiful, sunny, warm weather from the past 5 days was now gone as it was overcast and it started to rain lightly. No problem for us as it was getaway day. We just caught a late lunch (while of course watching more Olympic coverage) and then took a slow drive around Stanley Park. Would’ve been beautiful in nicer weather but still nice to see regardless as it shows an incredible view of the city.
Thinking of some overall views and insites of my week, I’ll update those later as it was so involved
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