Crushed again.... Isn't it fantastic!

My second visit to "The Crush" is over -- and an amazing success all the way around.

We drove up Thursday.  Brian stayed with family and the rest of us stayed in the hotel next to Vacaville Ice Sports.  It's a nice place, and it is full of Curlers over the weekend.

Our first draw was at 8:00am on Friday -- and we knew the outcome before we left.  Their skip, Regan, has been curling for years, their second went to Worlds in 2007 and coached the 2010 Olympic team.  The "official" score was 6-1 (they quit posting the score after the second end).  Thank you Regan, Charles, Bill and Chicky for helping us get out of the "A" bracket.

We got to hang around and renew old friendships -- and make new friends for much of the day.  Our second draw was at 9:30pm on Friday.

Last year, Debbie McCormick showed me that Curlers are just Curlers, and most of them are simply friends you've never met.

This year was no different.  Her husband Pete is equally cool.  Edith Louden (Nagano, 1998) and Eric Hazard rounded out a strong rink.

You can probably tell which of us are teammates, and which is our favorite Curler.

Friday night we met Team Sciacero from SFBACC.  Great folks, and a much closer score.  They helped us steer clear of the "B" bracket.  Some of our teammates (the smarter ones) did not broomstack afterwards.

I can't really talk about Saturday's game.  We played at 7:00am.  I think I actually woke up around 10:00am.  What I do remember is that we won our third game -- and we had to knock out the best family rink ever to do it.

Sorry.

Saturday night was the banquet, and team-building is a big part of events like this.  Broom-shooters, Broom-shooters, sweep! sweep! sweep!

The banquet is a party, so three of us were out of uniform.

Our next game was Sunday at 1:00pm.  The finals were at 3:30, and we were up against a team of mostly OCC members.  We had a tough time with the ice, they went on to take the final game in the Merlot bracket.

That's never the whole story.  We went to play four games, and we did.  We had a fabulous time.  We got to spend a lot of time with 140 of the greatest players in the greatest sport.

That ranges from Debbie McCormick to Gail -- my teammate from last year.  Gail and I taught Joe and Harmonie in their first class, and Joe and Harmonie were at The Crush too.

Special thanks to Brian, Misha and Brenna just for being Brian, Misha and Brenna.