Some games define teams. Some serve merely to confirm what we think we know.

On Friday night my novice curling team took our 6-0 record to what is basically our home sheet against a winless team of mismatched jam canners. If Vegas had a say we’d be prohibitive favourites; Dolphins at Pats with a new headset jammer and 12 hours of illegal film.

They had last rock in the first and we stole 2. This team looked like an easy out. Their lead spent half the game on his phone. Who could be texting this short, weird-bodied troll man so persistently?

Their second was utterly normal. Not tall or short, neither fat nor skinny and not bald but also not hirsute. He needed a pocket full of tictacs to get noticed.

The third was a middle aged lady. She was deadly with her guards, forcing us to play left-handed several times. She informed me they had only won once through the winter and spring seasons. I accused her of sandbagging but I don’t think she knew what I meant.

The skip was probably the third’s husband. He was good too and had a nice gold-logoed Canucks hat. The skate design with a fake Bo Horvat signature on the underside of the brim. A logically incoherent deception he was quick to point out when I asked after the source. Perhaps a Christmas gift. Something a son’s girlfriend buys because it’s on sale and she’s pretty sure he’s a fan. I’ve given my share of bad gifts, I get it.  

They scored one with last rock in the second but we were coming back with the hammer and no one in our camp was worried. Holding the team with last rock to one is the goal. We were cock of the walk. Then these bad news bears stole three on us to take a 4-2 lead. No one had taken more than a single out of our back pockets all year.

Instead of another cheap steamrolling it was week 17 in Miami. Antonio Brown is the third worst person on the team and Meng Zao Hui is getting full citizenship for her testimony. I tried to book an appointment at the Orchids spa but they said she was going to be tied up all week.

We managed only one in the fourth and doubt started creeping in. Like a sailor on shore leave in Thailand we suddenly had to wonder why she offered that particular option with no extra charge. It was brought up so readily and now that I think back – was she wearing that choker the whole time?

The even ends were fast ice but the odd ones were slow. Twelve is always a tricky surface but still favoured because of the private walkway and beer shelf. We should’ve been used to the nuances as we’d been on that sheet far more often than chance would suggest out of 12 possibilities. 4 of 7 games. That’s as likely as a Donald Trump loss this November. 

Just like that inevitable late season fall into the unseated toilet that bedevils the Lance Armstrongs of the NFL, we had every reason to flick on the light switch but instead ended up waist deep in what we hope was a recently flushed American Standard.

They took advantage of last rock in the fifth and scored two more. Now down 6-3 hope was fading fast. I was drunk and tired. Did the poorly played game really matter? Was I still having fun, regardless of whether they were eating our lunch? If I can’t tell the difference aren’t we just two teams enjoying the game? Of course. Why, we both get what we want and no one gets pregnant.

Our team had been off all night. It felt twisted somehow. Like we had a stone in our collective shoe. Or, to continue the theme, our son rebuffed a deep tongue kiss, our magic underwear had been charged under the wrong phase of the moon and our wife hadn’t pegged us with an unfinished deck piling last night. 

I played like trash. We all did. I told our third I couldn’t make the same shot twice, which I was trying a lot because I kept missing on my first. With my final attempt I assured him I knew I could make a shot I had just missed if I tried it again. I believed it. I gathered focus and set my mind to making good this time. My team needed me.

Then I slid out of the hack and threw my second rock into the cheap seats. If you could hit a foul ball in curling I did it.

Despite my group playing our worst game of the year we still had an undeserved shot to redeem ourselves in the sixth.

Last rock. Sitting one with a chance for a hit to get three and the win. We still had hope and an opponent who expected disappointment. This is the moment when our heroes, the great cheaters of our time, come through with a big play and a plausibly deniable explanation for the cheapening of our craft. 

Our hearts paused a beat. The fan… ehh, he was getting up for something else anyway. A hush came over the rink, broken only by the piercing screams and hollers coming from the eleven other games taking place.

Our skip drew his rock back. The push, the slide, the delivery. His shot looked true. Our sweeping was on point. This was our moment of glory played in real-time.

Alack, we did not live up to our idols’ standards on this day. Our rock of last hope drifted just off the mark and we settled for two and our first loss of the spring. A 6-5 final that makes our record 6-1 for the year with two weeks to go before the playoffs.

It wasn’t quite what we had hoped for but the important thing is whether we enjoyed ourselves. I can say with certainty that I did. If the game actually had laryngitis and a thyroid disorder isn’t important. This one match will not define us. All that matters is that we had a good time and there really was no film in that video camera.