For several years my neighbour and I talked about joining forces to go to a Bonspiel somewhere. We had never played together but remembered each other as being curlers in Highschool (25 years previous).
I had lived in Fort St. James for several years and remembered how the entire community got behind their Men’s Bonspiel so finally we recruited 2 other players who we had curled with before and headed North from Quesnel, BC.
When we arrived, we found out we were playing the defending “A” event champion and somehow despite one player breaking their broom, we managed to eek out a victory! That evening we bought our team in the Calcutta without much hope of cashing in. An extra end win the next morning and then an easy game after the Saturday Banquet put us in the Final of the A.
Not to be denied we built a big lead and then held on to win, even though we had never played as a team before. First pick of the prizes and over a grand in Calcutta cash later we shocked our spouses when we returned. Three of the 4 of us are still playing together regularly and despite a new hip and shaky slides are as competitive as ever!
