Curling anyone?!

We had our day full of curls yesterday...curling the sport...curling the Sleeman's honey lager at the end...but the first part was more interesting....except for Tyler.  The Vanouver Olympic Center where the curling was held is adjacent to Queen Elizabeth Park - which is home to a long extinct volcano and a former stone quarry.  The stone quarry has been converted to wonderful japanese influenced gardens....and at the top of the hill - there are awesome views of the city of Vancouver to the north.  There was a large fountain and statue and tyler found another 6 year old Canadian boy to play with and run and jump around with.  Tyler insisted on wearing his Caanda jersey for the second straight day! 

Our first curling experience was interesting...the family of one of the American curlers was in front of us - a bunch of 20-something-obnoxious steriotypical americans shouting 2 rows in front...and the lot of us were trying to figure out scoring and strategy.  It was cool in that there were 4 sheets...with 8 countries competing all at once.  We of course focused most on the US-Great Britain's women's match which we pulled out at the end!

Other matches were Russia and Sweden (the swede's were actually smoked early!), China and Germany, and the Swiss and Netherlands.  It was cool to watch them all at once and we started to get the strategy and scoring as the game went on.  As much as we made fun of the "non-athleticism" of the teams - there is definitely alot more skill and strategy involved than you can appreciate without watching.  The match lasted all of 3 hours...but as much as I never thought I would say this going in - I would go watch it again (well, maybe sans 5 year old!). 

Tyler definitely used up all his energy walking around the park and city the day before...and then Queen Elizabeth park before the match....and took a wonderful hour + nap at curling. 

Terri, Alyssa and Tyler got to meet one of the American curlers after the match who was out with her family and got their pix with her.  All in all - a much cooler event than I gave it credit for - glad we went!  And of course - we did enjoy doing the wave around the curling rink with the thousands of other fans - didn't think we'd be doing the wave goin into this match!- Scott T. Boy