The Thing About Nerds

The Zamboni Guy

                   

During last school year in October I tried out for the basketball team. I didn't make it but who was I kidding, I hadn't practised in over a year. So instead I made my friends try out for the curling team with me. Truthfully I think all of us wanted to be on some sort of sports team because at the end of the year the school puts on a giant banquet. So we walked into the dance studio and signed up.

There were no tryouts, and we were on the team instantly. M, Ghostie, and myself along with two other people made up the junior girls team. A week later we went to our first practise. So if anyone isn't familiar with curling you are basically on an ice rink and on the opposite side of the rink there is a bull's eye. You are trying to throw your stones closer to the bull's eye than your opponents and score points. The bull's eye is called the house.

In order to throw your stone you have to slide out of something called a hack, which is basically a little step that you push off of with your right foot. On your left foot you have a slippery piece of plastic called a slider. The slider allows you to glide on the ice when you push off.

To get us used to the ice our coach thought it would be a good idea to make us wear the slider and slide across the length of the ice one way and back. Note: in a game you never ever do that. So we where all falling and tripping and falling some more all over the place. And it hurt. So hundreds of bruises later our coach tells us "hey you never do that in a game so don't worry." I wanted to scream.

Ghostie became our skip, meaning she is the team captain and tells us where to aim as we throw the stone. She, at that point, was the only one of us who knew how to slide out of the hack properly.

Now I'm going to rant about our coach a little bit more. At the beginning of the season we lost most of our games, but a few games later we were winning 11-2. Which in curling is a big deal. Whether we lost or won a game our coach would say nothing. No good job or try harder. Nope. Nothing. Nada. Sometimes he left our games early if the senior boys team game was done. Oh ya, he loved the senior boys (they never won a game). By the end of the season we were 3rd and the boys team was close to last.

Now time for the adventures of Zamboni guy. So it is our last game and the ice is straight up crap. There is dirt everywhere and its cracking in some places which is not good... at all. So we looked at the ice, and at each other and went on to this cracking ice like the brave souls we are. In curling you have a time limit and in that time limit you are responsible for completing 6 ends (for our junior league usually 8 ends). An end is basically one round. So we were on our 4th end and Zamboni guy appears out of the shadows on our ice. And we stop the game and look at him (the time is still going on by the way). So he's got his head phones on and his machine and starts to clean the ice JUST ON OUR SHEET OF ICE. My team and the other team are just staring at this guy wondering why the hell he would just start cleaning the ice in the middle of a game. So 5 minutes go by. Then 10. And 20. Now we get pissed off. We are marching over to him prepared to yell when he turns around looks us in the eye. Then finally puts his stupid machine away.  And we continued the game.

After we lost that game by one point (blaming the crappy ice for that one). We pile into the taxi to take us back to the school where our parents will pick us up. And we start our speeches. We all said some heartfelt things about working together as a team and determination. At the end we bad mouth our coach. And that is how curling 2014/2015 went.

A/N

Hey guys, I haven't updated in while but here's a fabulous story of curling. I forgot to mention that on the last practise we had one member of the senior boys team slid out of the hack did a 360 spin then threw the stone to the center of the bull's eye (called the button). That was funny cuz he was the chilliest guy ever. But ya join curling guys.

-               Sky