Ice Packs and Pebble: Verb Tenses at a Curling Bonspiel

Zainab's Curling Journal

1Last Saturday, our junior curling team played in its very first bonspiel, which is a curling tournament. I had practiced for weeks, but my knees were shaking when we stepped onto the ice. Before the first game started, the ice crew had sprayed tiny drops of water all across the sheet. The drops froze into little bumps called pebble. Pebble helps the heavy granite stones slide and curl.

2I am the lead, so I throw our team's first two stones in every end. An end is a little like an inning in baseball. Henrik, our skip, waits on the other side of the sheet and holds out his broom to show where I should aim each stone. Before every throw, I crouch low and push off from the hack, a rubber foothold. Bao and Greta are our sweepers. When they sweep hard in front of a moving stone, it usually travels farther and straighter.

3In the first end, my opening stone slid right past the house, the big painted target of rings. By the time I let go of my second stone, I had remembered Coach Lindqvist's advice: "Push with your legs, not your arm." That stone stopped near the button, the small circle in the very center. Henrik grinned and tapped his broom on the ice. Bao and Greta had swept that stone almost the whole way, and their cheeks were bright pink.

4We lost the first game by one point, but we won the second game. Right now, I am sitting at the kitchen table with an ice pack on each sore knee. Next month we will play in another bonspiel across the lake. By then, Greta will have learned a new sweeping style, and I will have practiced my slide every single day. If we sweep together, we can win more ends. If I could throw like Henrik, I would try the hardest shots myself.