‘One shot can change your life’
PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA— Deep breaths, everyone. Deep breaths, shake it out, go for a walk. Usually at the Olympics, you don’t have to start living and dying with every damned stone thrown in the curling, if you are Canadian. Usually you can ease into it a little.
But these Olympics are different. Kevin Koe’s rink losing two straight; eh, it happens. But on the women’s side, Rachel Homan’s is an everchanging roller coaster of emotions, with the distinct difference with most roller coasters that in this case, the track could end in the air at any time, leaving them hurtling into the abyss. Yeah, it’s been a bit of a ride.
“That was obviously a nail-biter,” said Canadian coach Adam Kingsbury, after a wild 10-8 comeback win over Switzerland that pulled Canada to 2-3 in round-robin play. “A much different game that yesterday. Yesterday (in an11-3 win over the United States), all four of the players fired on all cylinders, and today it could easily have gone the other way.
“And just so everyone knows, especially at this level it’s quite rare, the position that they were in after giving up two three-enders, to come back from that. That’s something that doesn’t happen too often.”
Uh, yeah. According to CurlingZone.com, over the past four years Swiss skip Silviana Tirinzoni was 30-1 when up two with two ends to play and holding the hammer. And you know what? She was up two with two ends to play. With the hammer.
Canada, meanwhile, was back in that sometimes shaky place. It wasn’t one player missing; they took turns. Switzerland broke a 4-4 tie with three in the sixth. Joanne Courtney, Canada’s second, was particularly struggling. It was 8-6 for the Swiss after eight. Every rock that roared down was a suspense novel.
And then Canada broke through for three in the ninth, and stole one in the 10th when the Swiss skip threw a draw on the final stone of the game that slid too far. Deep breaths, everyone. Maybe have a beer.
“Yeah, it really is a game of inches, and one shot can change it around,” said lead Lisa Weagle. “One shot can change your life. When we won the Scotties last year, that one shot just changed everything for us. So we’re just trying to take it one shot at a time out there.”
They really are. Listen to them, and know what life is like as a dominant team that suddenly has its heels on the edge of a cliff. After Canada started 0-3, the Americans blew a chance to put pressure on a rink that could come apart. The Swiss did, and Canada didn’t come apart. Not quite.
“Yeah, I kind of felt like we’ve got our backs against the wall right now,” said Weagle. “We’ve got nothing to lose. So for me I was just trying to stay in the moment and make my shots and sweep everyone else’s, and support them as well as I could, and if we won that’s great, and if we didn’t I would have walked away knowing I did my best. So that’s kind of how I’m going to approach every game now. Like we’re in the C-side of a bonspiel, (without any margin of error for a loss), and we’ve got to win it out.”
“There’s nothing you can do about the way you start, but you can do something about the way you finish,” said third Emma Miskew. “We just said ‘Let’s go out there and fight.’ If it works for us then great, and if not, at least we know we gave it our all . . . The last couple of days have actually been nice because we chose to let go of the first couple days.”
“Really proud of my team, how well they played,” said Homan.
“People assume that you just have to stay happy, and you have to push down any doubt and uncertainty,” said Kingsbury. “And the truth is, we’re all human. What makes this game great is it seems deceptively simple, but there’s ever-changing conditions, there are changing scenarios, and no two shots are ever the same. So to be able to recognize what you’re feeling and then to come back and make a really sharp decision, and most important, be able to execute that. It’s putting all of those things together, and they’re doing such a good job.”
On Monday, Canada played a 4-1 Japanese team, and blew the game open in the fifth end on the way to an 8-3 victory, evening their record at 3-3. All things are possible for them now, because Canada is living rock to rock, end to end. One rock can change your life, Weagle said. If you are Canada right now, all you can hope for is that it changes it the way you want.