Last weekend JK, and Grant, and myself jumped into the car and drove 1000+ kms to meet up with Trev to participate in Curl for Cancer at the Fredericton Curling Club. This is an event that I participated in last year with my brothers and sister, in memory of my mom. My main goal last year, since I’m not a curler, was to win the title of highest individual fundraiser. As it turned out, my biggest competitor in that race was my own brother, and teammate, Mike. Since there was no easy online donation page for participants last year, I had no idea how close or far I was from his total – and he wasn’t telling me anything. Of course, the reverse was true as well, and I didn’t tell him what my total was either so both of us were flying blind right up until the day of the event. If you haven’t read my post from last year, I’ll give you the short version – I managed to beat my brother and win the title by bringing in $1230. Since my brother was close to me in what he was able to bring in, we also secured the highest team fundraiser title as well. This year, I hoped to retain my title and also keep the team title as well.
I wasn’t really on the ball this year for this event – not sure why, but I didn’t start thinking about it until a couple of weeks before. After talking to my dad, it wasn’t clear what everyone’s plan was – he mentioned that my sister wasn’t planning to participate this year, and he said he hadn’t heard from my brother Sean on what his plans were so… As a result, I contacted the boys here to see if they’d be interested. They jumped at the opportunity and Grant quickly decided that if we were going to go – since we weren’t going to win at curling – that we should at least look the part. And by look the part, he thought we’d better wear kilts. Grant is also the one who came up with the team name – Stones of Stone – which he felt suited us well considering the kilts and the cool conditions at the curling club. :) Grant had some other great ideas which we didn’t end up using this year, but may put to good use in the future.
I’m happy to report that I did manage to retain my title as highest individual fundraiser, after bringing in $1533.33! (Special thanks to Darcy for making sure it wasn’t a nice round number) Another huge THANK YOU to everyone who sponsored me – you guys are the best, and I hope I can count on you again next year! I’m also happy to report that once again, my closest competition was a member of my own team – Trevor brought in $1015! In fact my entire team did a kick ass job and collectively we brought in over $4K in donations! That was definitely good enough to get us the top team fundraiser award and also good enough to account for 20-25% of the total amount raised by the entire event! We were one team out of 22 and we brought in nearly 25% of the total amount – if you ask me, that’s damn impressive and I couldn’t be more proud of my team!
As far as the actual curling part of the event, I think we ended up surprising a lot of people (ourselves included), by staying in the running for 1st place right up until the last draw of the day! After all was said and done, we took third place, which we were more than happy with considering our lack of experience with curling. The way placing was determined was strictly based on points scored so it didn’t necessarily mean the best would end up winning – it all depended on the strength of teams you ended up playing. If two really good teams played each other it might end with two low scores, whereas two teams that had never played before might end up scoring a bunch of points. I’m not saying that’s what happened with us, but I’m not saying that’s NOT what happened either. We won two games and lost our third. I was skip for all three games and take full responsibility for the loss of our third game – I think I cracked under the pressure. I don’t think the two Picaroon’s Winter Warmers before the third game helped though.
There were awards for: (a) highest individual fundraiser, (b) highest team fundraiser, (c) most enthusiastic team, (d) 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in curling. We nabbed the awards for highest individual and team fundraiser, picked up 3rd place for curling and even got an honourable mention for most enthusiastic team – thanks in large part to our kilts I’m sure – so I’m calling this a huge success for Stones of Stone’s first outing as a team. Well done boys! (In case you’re wondering – the Special Olympics team got the award for most enthusiastic team)
The final thing I need to mention is the outcome of the first annual Haggerty grudge match. As it turned out, both my sister and brother did indeed end up playing – so there was once again a Haggerty team playing in Curl for Cancer. It was my two brothers, Mike and Sean, my sister, Katie, and my dad – who was naturally the skip of the team. We set up a game against them at the end of the day – which ended up being immediately after losing our first game of the day. They drew first blood and picked up a point in the first end, but we countered with a single in the 2nd end to tie it up. They then picked up another couple points in the 3rd end. We again managed to tie it up in the 4th and final end (short games). That meant it was a draw to the button contest between skips. It was my dad, a seasoned curling veteran, versus me. I really don’t think I need to tell you how this ended, you can likely guess, but I’ll spell it out for posterity. They beat us. We’ll get them next year!
I haven’t heard the official total for the amount of money raised, but as I alluded to above, it was somewhere between 16 and 17K I think – a bit lower than last year unfortunately.
That’s about it. For those interested, I’ve got some photos here, Trev’s got some photos here, and JK’s got some photos here.
