Line of doom
History was made at the Medford Curling Club last Thursday night.
For only the third time in the past 25 years, a team was able to score a perfect 8-rock end during a game in Medford.
The team of Dave “Beaner” Lemke, Bill Mundt, Dave Hraby and skipped by Chad Demulling accomplished the eight-ender in the fourth end of Thursday Nite Men’s League while playing on sheet one.
Scoring an eight-ender is a very big deal. It is comparable to throwing a no-hitter in baseball, scoring a perfect 300 in bowling or getting a hole in one in golf, if while doing those activities, the other team was actively throwing heavy rocks in your direction to try to knock you out.
This is the third eight-ender I have seen since I came to The Star News and the first one I have witnessed take place in person.
Other than the players on the scoring team, the only person who had a better view of it happening in real-time was my team’s third, who was calling the shot — that I ultimately missed — which set Demulling up to draw in with the hammer stone to lay a perfect eight.
In reading various articles about eight-enders from different clubs over the years, a common theme has been to, focus on the scoring team and barely mention the losing team. Presumably this is to spare them the shame of being called out for allowing it to happen.
This is understandable. As I now know from personal experience, being on the losing side of an eight-ender ranks somewhere between a root canal and walking barefoot in the dark at 3 a.m. through a room littered with loose Legos.
In defense of my teammates, who have long suffered under my, at times questionable, leadership as skip, we were actually playing pretty well last week. We were on cooking team during the first week of league (making pork loin stuffed with cheddar cheese and bacon with a light maple syrup glaze served with garden potatoes, green beans, maple-glazed carrots, salad and ice cream and cookies for dessert). This meant that December 8 was our first real time on the ice together since last spring.
I could whine about the league chairman who seems to have it out for us who gave us such a heavy-hitting competitor on our first night, but mirrors aren’t very sympathetic listeners.
Despite this, and even against such powerhouse opponents, we were feeling pretty good that night. We scored a rock in the first end, kept them to one rock in the second and scored another in the third with the score 2-1 coming back home on the fourth end.
While we all recognized that there was a certain inevitability that they would pull ahead with a big end and win, our goal was to make them work for it.
They dialed into the weight and channel to create the dreaded Line of Doom, a row of well placed rocks that would require a cannon to clear out. The best we could hope for would be to muddy things up and try to keep down their score. Spoiler alert, we didn’t do this. Instead I made the classic blunder of focusing on one part of the ice rather than stepping back to see the whole house.
Our shots didn’t pan out as they parked one after another in scoring position. Hindsight being 20/20 I can think of at least a dozen things I should have done differently, including sneaking out during a bathroom break and leaving town to start a new life under an assumed name. We had our chances, we just didn’t make them happen.
Demulling’s rock was barely stopped as I shook his hand to congratulate him for a well-played end and game.
There is a tradition in curling that the winners and losers sit down together after the game to rehash the game and solve the world’s problems. As traditions go, this is a pretty good one, reminding us that while there are winners and losers in every game, the end result is to come together to celebrate great shots, agonize over missed opportunities and share in a love for the sport.
Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.
