Olympic Gold!

I enjoyed watching mixed doubles curling in its inaugural Olympic year. Although curling is a major sport in Canada, the mixed doubles format is relatively new for us, even though it has been popular in Europe for years.

It is quite different than regular curling as rocks are placed prior to the start of an end, there are fewer rocks thrown, and fewer are allowed to be removed. It all makes for an interesting precision game. A regular curling game has four players who work together to place each stone. However, in mixed doubles, there are only two players so the game is much more volatile and large scores are much more common.

The moment in this photo of the TV is right after the team from Switzerland conceded the gold medal game to Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris from Canada. Both are strong players and were more or less born with a curling rock in their hands :) Both are now two time Olympic gold medalist - John won on the Kevin Martin rink in 2010 and Kaitlyn won on the Jennifer Jones rink in 2014. When he was younger John played at the Ottawa Curling club (see photo from Feb 4).