A mediocre game with a good finish

Sunday's Brier final was one of the poorest games I saw this week at the Brier. Joel and I had tickets from Thursday morning on - and also went to the Monday morning draw, and I watched some on tv too.

Both finalists - Kevin Martin's team from Alberta and Glenn Howard's Ontario team - had played much better in earlier games. Martin's rink had been unstoppable all week, going undefeated, although they did look human in their playoff game against Saskatchewan (a game the Sask boys should have won). But on Sunday they were far from their best.

The story was the same with Howard, who was the defending champion. Some of the players on the teams had been playing at 90% accuracy or more during the week, and it's hard to play at that high a level for a whole week. Sadly, they hadn't saved their best for last.

But they were equal in being off their game, so the game was close, but also a low scoring affair with only 9 points in total put up on the board. Each team only got a deuce - 2 points in an end - once. Howard's two point end came in the 9th to tie the game.

But that gave Martin the hammer - last rock - in the last end, and he made good use of it by drawing the four foot to score a tie-breaking point and win the 2008 Canadian Curling Championship, a.k.a. the Tim Horton's Brier.

It was a good shot, and classic finish to what was an otherwise less than classic game.

I'm happy I went to some of the games. One of the remarkable things about them was how fast the ice is. It's as if the ice was like glass. If I was throwing the weight that these players used for some of their take out shots on my draws at the Grain Exchange (where I curl mixed), I'd be hogging my shots (not even getting them in play). And their draw weight is even lower than the take out weight. Unbelievable.