Crouching Tiger, Curling Nort

Nort (above), Lids and I stopped out at the Wauwatosa Curling Club's open house on Saturday. There were ALOT of people there, but we had a chance to hop on the ice, and much to Will's dismay, none of us busted our sh*t on the ice.

A few other people there took a couple of diggers while trying to get out of the 'hack', but we didn't see any broken bones for the day.

It was alot of fun, and Nort is a NATURAL. I don't know if he has secretly been practicing out in the frozen cow pastures for the last four years, but that boy is GOOD.

They made you practice tossing the stone back and forth with a partner, who was like 10 feet away from you first. Yawn. Then, you put on the teflon sole, and took two stones into the 'hack', and pushed off, learning how to take off.

From there, you'd go to another hack, and with a stabilizer and a stone, push off the hack, but not release the stone.

At the last station, you gave it a whirl, and chucked a stone on down the sheet. Well, damned if Nort didn't put his all the way INTO the house ( the circles at the end ). On his FIRST toss ever. ( unless, again, he's been practicing out in the pastures in his backyard ). He was grinning like a kid in a candy store the whole time.

You also had the option of sweeping a stone at the end as well, and that is MUCH harder than it looks. Getting a rhythm for sweeping and moving down the ice without falling on your ass is quite difficult - moreso than tossing the rock out of the hack.

We will be back. The season for curling is almost over, but I have a feeling we will be joining the Club next season. The fee for the year is like 200 bucks...... but that includes all the FOOD and BEER. Yes, unlimited beer. Nort looked at me on the ice, and with a straight face asked me, "Is this heaven?"

We'll definitely be able to eat and drink our $200 worth next year. Oh yeah... We'll get to curl some too.