Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006
Dear Diary:

I keep pinching myself.

Despite fairly mediocre play, my beloved Dordi Nordby is currently sitting at the top of Olympic Women's curling. As you can see, she ain't ahead by much, and the rankings are tight indeed.

Yet again, Dordi is toying with my emotions. Will her winning streak continue or will the pressure get to her? Will her wheels come off as the tournament advances, as they have so many times before?

Oh, the agony.

I have yet to see a game played by her team because both the Canadian and U.S. networks keep showing piffle such as skating and skiing. Can you imagine? I think I speak for us all when I say, "Where are their priorities? "

Even here in curling obsessed Canada they're only showing the highlights of the Canadian men's and women's games. If you want to see a full game you have to go to a specialty network called TSN. And even TSN isn't showing any full games beyond those that involve the Canadian teams.

It's hard not to be bitter.

So I have been following Dordi vicariously through the internet. You have no idea how much my heart bled when I saw her overall stats. Clearly, from these numbers, she's been playing poorly herself. It looks as if her third, the woman who plays ahead of her, has been saving Dordi's butt by playing superbly.

Dordi has to stop toying with my emotions like this. She has to step up to the hack and start throwing like I know she can. Neither of us is getting any younger. I need for her to win an Olympic gold.

My one and only chance to see Dordi outside the finals (if she doesn't choke and psych herself out of the finals) comes tomorrow when she plays Canada. You have no idea how conflicted I feel.

The Canadian women curlers have been playing superbly. It's a joy to watch them weave complex strategies and execute amazingly difficult shots. Curling is a lot like chess in that when you make a move you have to think three or four moves down the line, imagine all the possible ways that the position of your rock could hurt or help your opponent.

So yep, I'm definitely loving the way the Canadian women's curling team is taking no prisoners.

But my heart belongs to Dordi.

Dordi.

Canada.

Dordi.

Canada.

It's going to be such a tough game to watch.

The Canadian men's team is just behind the Swedish team. I know that you shared my grief over their heartbreaking loss yesterday to Sweden that was caused by a freakish "pick". I'm sure a major topic around the office coolers at work was how the Canadians wuz robbed.

The Canadian skip Brad Gushue was well on his way to victory with his final shot when his rock hit a tiny bit of debris, a "pick", in the ice and was derailed from its intended path. This is both the joy and horror of curling.

You can have superb strategy, you can throw a rock with a perfect weight (force) so your teammates don't need to sweep ahead of it, with perfect curl (curve) and *still* have your shot fail for reasons completely out of your control.

Curling is not for the weak of heart. But then, you knew that, eh?

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 181.14 miles. 10 per cent rubber duckDuckage! There was a time I ate my stress. Now I burn it off in motion.


Goal for 2005: 1,250 miles - 2000 kilometers



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