Oakville Optimist Junior Cashspiel Days 3&4

The second day of competition began with a loss against a talented salmon-colored jacket team. It was disappointing to lose after such a perfect day of competition the day before so we headed down to the center of Oakville--a really nice area of shopping and parks along Lake Ontario that is very unlike the rest of Canada, which seems to be a desolate wasteland of endless, cramped neighborhoods with the same type of house repeated over and over and over...

It was on a park bench by the lake that we discussed our loss and came to the conclusion that IAAU or that It's All About Us and that's how it's going to be in order for us to win. This was really a huge life-changing revelation we had here--it was an embodiment of the fact that each CWB season has brought such growth and change to the team and that each year we have come so far and yet there's always so much more to be had. I could never get tired of analyzing and perfecting a team from its dynamics to its techniques and I think CWB this year is going to be pretty close to if not perfection, then at least harmony at its highest level. So watch out.

After that, we headed back to the club for our second game against some girls we had been talking to the day before. It was a good close game and we pulled it out for the win which brought our total winnings up to 125 CND and put us back into the qualifying round meaning we didn't have to play until the next day.

This particular spiel was crazy--basically anyone could get back into the quarterfinals depending on their win/loss record and it was set up so that the final day, Sunday, would have three back-to-back draws. This set-up was especially good for us because it put us into a sort of Nationals semifinal type set-up of win or you're out. Well, we won our first game and ten minutes after getting off the ice, we were back on again for our second draw against the team that had already beat us. I really don't recommend two draws in a row. Not only is it physically exhausting but mentally it's pretty hard to keep focused. So we lost and that put us in the consolation event. But hey, we made it to the top four teams and that's pretty impressive for our first spiel of the year.

Those crazy Canadians would have had us play a third game but instead we forfeited in order to make our flights and took the 300 dollar prize over the 400 dollar one if we had won. So overall we made 425 CND! AND we are ranked 8th in Ontario! AND our flights home weren't delayed (too much). AND it was probably the best spiel we've been to in Canada thus far. I mean no one really gave us a schedule before we got there so we had no idea what to expect, there were no social events as usual, and we were not expected to eat or sleep, only curl, BUT we are especially good at entertaining ourselves and Team Walker is a team of troopers.

Our next get-together will be the second weekend of October during which we have some scrimmages planned so look for more then!